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Hardy, Thomas, 1840-1928

"The Mayor of Casterbridge"

Half-an-hour after her arrival he
walked in, and she met him with a relieved gladness, which a month's
perilous absence could not have intensified.
"There is one thing I have not done; and yet it is important," she said
earnestly, when she had finished talking about the adventure with
the bull. "That is, broken the news of our marriage to my dear
Elizabeth-Jane."
"Ah, and you have not?" he said thoughtfully. "I gave her a lift from
the barn homewards; but I did not tell her either; for I thought
she might have heard of it in the town, and was keeping back her
congratulations from shyness, and all that."
"She can hardly have heard of it. But I'll find out; I'll go to her
now. And, Donald, you don't mind her living on with me just the same as
before? She is so quiet and unassuming."
"O no, indeed I don't," Farfrae answered with, perhaps, a faint
awkwardness. "But I wonder if she would care to?"
"O yes!" said Lucetta eagerly. "I am sure she would like to. Besides,
poor thing, she has no other home."
Farfrae looked at her and saw that she did not suspect the secret of
her more reserved friend. He liked her all the better for the blindness.
"Arrange as you like with her by all means," he said. "It is I who have
come to your house, not you to mine."
"I'll run and speak to her," said Lucetta.


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