But my first meeting with
her was purely an accident. Do you see, Michael, partly why I have done
it?--why, to give you an excuse for coming here as if to visit HER, and
thus to form my acquaintance naturally. She is a dear, good girl, and
she thinks you have treated her with undue severity. You may have done
so in your haste, but not deliberately, I am sure. As the result has
been to bring her to me I am not disposed to upbraid you.--In haste,
yours always,
"LUCETTA."
The excitement which these announcements produced in Henchard's gloomy
soul was to him most pleasurable. He sat over his dining-table long and
dreamily, and by an almost mechanical transfer the sentiments which
had run to waste since his estrangement from Elizabeth-Jane and Donald
Farfrae gathered around Lucetta before they had grown dry. She was
plainly in a very coming-on disposition for marriage. But what else
could a poor woman be who had given her time and her heart to him
so thoughtlessly, at that former time, as to lose her credit by it?
Probably conscience no less than affection had brought her here. On the
whole he did not blame her.
"The artful little woman!" he said, smiling (with reference to Lucetta's
adroit and pleasant manoeuvre with Elizabeth-Jane).
To feel that he would like to see Lucetta was with Henchard to start
for her house.
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