unger than he, they say,' continued the second, with also a
glance of reflectiveness in the same direction.

'How old do you call him, then?'

'Thirty or so.'

'More like forty,' broke in an old milkman near, in a long white pinafore
or 'wropper,' and with the brim of his hat tied down, so that he looked
like a woman. ''A was born before our Great Weir was builded, and I
hadn't man's wages when I laved water there.'

The discussion waxed so warm that the purr of the milk-streams became
jerky, till a voice from another cow's belly cried with authority, 'Now
then, what the Turk do it matter to us about Farmer Lodge's age, or
Farmer Lodge's new mis'ess? I shall have to pay him nine pound a year
for the rent of every one of these milchers, whatever his age or hers.
Get on with your work, or 'twill be dark afore we have done. The evening
is pinking in a'ready.' This speaker was the dairyman himself; by whom
the milkmaids and men were employed.

Nothing more was said publicly about Farmer Lodge's wedding, but the
first woman murmured under her cow to her next neighbour, ''Tis hard for
she,' signifying the thin worn milkmaid aforesaid.

'O no,' said the second. 'He ha'n't spoke to Rhoda Brook for years.'

When the milking was done they washed their pails and hung them on a many-
forked stand made of the peeled limb of an oak-tree, set upright in the
earth, and resembling a colossal antlered horn. The majority then
dispersed in various directions homeward. The thin woman who had not
spoken was joined by a boy of twelve or thereabout, and the twain went
away up the field also.

Their course lay apart from that of the others, to a lonely spot high
above the water-meads, and not far from the border of Egdon Heath, whose
dark countenance was visible in the distance as they drew nigh to their
home.

'They've just been saying down in barton that your father brings his
young wife home from Anglebury to-morrow,' the woman observed. 'I shall
want to send you for a few things to market, and you'll be pretty sure to
meet 'em.'

'Yes, mother,' said the boy. 'Is father married then?'

'Yes . . . You can give her a look, and tell me what's she's like, if you
do see her.'

'Yes, mother.'

'If she's dark or fair, and if she's tall--as tall as I. And if she
seems like a woman who has ever worked for a living, or one that has been
always well off, and has never done anything, and shows marks of the lady
on her, as I ex