own; but she never reached home alive. Her delicate vitality, sapped
perhaps by the paralyzed arm, collapsed under the double shock that
followed the severe strain, physical and mental, to which she had
subjected herself during the previous twenty-four hours. Her blood had
been 'turned' indeed--too far. Her death took place in the town three
days after.

Her husband was never seen in Casterbridge again; once only in the old
market-place at Anglebury, which he had so much frequented, and very
seldom in public anywhere. Burdened at first with moodiness and remorse,
he eventually changed for the better, and appeared as a chastened and
thoughtful man. Soon after attending the funeral of his poor young wife
he took steps towards giving up the farms in Holmstoke and the adjoining
parish, and, having sold every head of his stock, he went away to Port-
Bredy, at the other end of the county, living there in solitary lodgings
till his death two years later of a painless decline. It was then found
that he had bequeathed the whole of his not inconsiderable property to a
reformatory for boys, subject to the payment of a small annuity to Rhoda
Brook, if she could be found to claim it.

For some time she could not be found; but eventually she reappeared in
her old parish,--absolutely refusing, however, to have anything to do
with the provision made for her. Her monotonous milking at the dairy was
resumed, and followed for many long years, till her form became bent, and
her once abundant dark hair white and worn away at the forehead--perhaps
by long pressure against the cows. Here, sometimes, those who knew her
experiences would stand and observe her, and wonder what sombre thoughts
were beating inside that impassive, wrinkled brow, to the rhythm of the
alternating milk-streams.

('Blackwood's Magazine,' January 1888.)

FELLOW-TOWNSMEN

CHAPTER I

The shepherd on the east hill could shout out lambing intelligence to the
shepherd on the west hill, over the intervening town chimneys, without
great inconvenience to his voice, so nearly did the steep pastures
encroach upon the burghers' backyards. And at night it was possible to
stand in the very midst of the town and hear from their native paddocks
on the lower levels of greensward the mild lowing of the farmer's
heifers, and the profound, warm blowings of breath in which those
creatures indulge. But the community which had jammed itself in the
valley thus flank