all the motion she made was that of closing lips which had previous been a little parted.

"I am now forty-one years old," he went on. "I may have bea called a confirmed bachelor, and I was a confirmed bachelor. I had nev any views of myself as a husband in my earlier days, nor have I made an calculation on the subject since I have been older. But we all chang and my change, in this matter, came with seeing you. I have felt latel more and more, that my present way of living is bad in every respec Beyond all things, I want you as my wife."

"I feel, Mr. Boldwood, that though I respect you much, I do not fa -what would justify me to-in accepting your offer," she stammered. This giving back of dignity for dignity seemed to open the sluices feeling that Boldwood had as yet kept closed.

"My life is a burden without you," he exclaimed, in a low voice. want you-I want you to let me say I love you again and again!" Bathsheba answered nothing, and the horse upon her arm seemed impressed, that instead of cropping the herbage it looked up.

"I think and hope you care enough for me to listen to what I hav to tell!"

Bathsheba's momentary impulse at hearing this was to ask why thought that, till she remembered that, far from being a conceite assumption on Boldwood's part, it was but the natural conclusion of seriou reflection based on deceptive premises of her own offering.

"I wish I could say courteous flatteries to you," the farmer continu in an easier tone," and put my rugged feeling into a graceful shape; I have neither power nor patience to learn such things. I want you my wife—so wildly that no other feeling can abide in me; but I shou not have spoken out had I not been led to hope."

"The valentine again! O that valentine!" she said to herself, but

not a word to him.

"If you can love me, say so, Miss Everdene. If not-don't say no." "Mr. Boldwood, it is painful to have to say I am surprised, don't know how to answer you with propriety and respect-but am only just able to speak out my feeling-I mean my meaning; that I I can't marry you, much as I respect you. You are too dignified for me to suit you, sir."

"But, Miss Everdene!"

am

afraid

“I—I didn't—I know I ought never to have dreamt of sending that valentine-forgive me, sir-it was a wanton thing which no woman with any self-respect should have done. If you will only pardon my thoughtlessness, I promise never to

66 No, no, no. Don't say thoughtlessness! Make me think it was something more-that it was a sort of prophetic instinct-the beginning of a feeling that you would like me. You torture me to say it was done in thoughtlessness—I never thought of it in that light, and I can't endure it. Ah! I wish I knew how to win you! but that I can't do—I can only

k if I have already got you. If I have not, and it is not true that you ave come unwittingly to me as I have to you, I can say no more."

"I have not fallen in love with you, Mr. Boldwood-certainly I may that." She allowed a very small smile to creep for the first time over serious face in saying this, and the white row of upper teeth, and enly cut lips already noticed, suggested an idea of heartlessness, which as immediately contradicted by the pleasant eyes.

"But you will just think-in kindness and condescension think-if on cannot bear with me as a husband! I fear I am too old for you, but lieve me I will take more care of you than would many a man of your age. I will protect and cherish you with all my strength-I will ined. You shall have no cares-be worried by no household affairs, and e quite at ease, Miss Everdene. The dairy superintendence shall be ne by a man-I can afford it well-you shall never have so much as to out of doors at hay-making time, or to think of weather in the harvest. ther cling to the chaise, because it is the same my poor father and ether drove, but if you don't like it I will sell it, and you shall have pony-carriage of your own. I cannot say how far above every other dea and object on earth you seem to me-nobody knows-God only ows-how much you are to me!"

Bathsheba's heart was young, and it swelled with sympathy for the eep-natured man who spoke so simply.

:

"Don't say it don't! I cannot bear you to feel so much, and me feel nothing. And I am afraid they will notice us, Mr. Boldwood. Will you let the matter rest now? I cannot think collectedly. I did not how you were going to say this to me. Oh I am wicked to have made you suffer so!" She was frightened as well as agitated at his vehemence. Do not quite refuse! "

Say then, that you don't absolutely refuse.

"I can do nothing. I cannot answer."

"I may speak to you again on the subject ?"
"Yes."

"I may think of you?"

"Yes, I suppose you may think of me."

"And hope to obtain you ?"

"No-do not hope! Let us go on."

"I will call upon you again to-morrow."

"No-please not. Give me time."

"Yes-I will give you any time," he said earnestly and gratefully. "I am happier now."

"No-I beg you! Don't be happier if happiness only comes from my agreeing. Be neutral, Mr. Boldwood! I must think."

"I will wait,” he said.

Realities

And then she turned away. Boldwood dropped his eyes to the ground, and stood long like a man who did not know where he was. then returned upon him like the pain of a wound received in an excitement which eclipses it, and he, too, then went on.

CHAPTER XX.

PERPLEXITY: GRINDING THE SHEARS: A QUARREL.

"He is so disinterested and kind to offer me all that I can desire," Bathsheba said, musingly.

Yet Farmer Boldwood, whether by nature kind or the reverse to kind, did not exercise kindness here. The rarest offerings of the purest loves are but a self-indulgence, and no generosity at all.

Bathsheba, not being the least in love with him, was eventually able to look calmly at his offer. It was one which many women of her own station in the neighbourhood, and not a few of higher rank, would have been wild to accept and proud to publish. In every point of view, ranging from politic to passionate, it was desirable that she, a lonely girl, should marry, and marry this earnest, well-to-do, and respected man. He was close to her doors: his standing was sufficient: his qualities were even supererogat tory. Had she felt, which she did not, any wish whatever for the married state in the abstract, she could not reasonably have rejected him as & woman who frequently appealed to her understanding for deliverance from her whims. Boldwood as a means to marriage was unexceptionable: she esteemed and liked him: yet she did not want him. It appears that men take wives because possession is not possible without marriage, and that women accept husbands because marriage is not possible without posses sion; with totally differing aims the method is the same on both sides But the understood incentive on the woman's part was wanting here Besides, Bathsheba's position as absolute mistress of a farm and hous was a novel one, and the novelty had not yet begun to wear off.

But a disquiet filled her which was somewhat to her credit, for it would have affected few. Beyond the mentioned reasons with which she com bated her objections, she had a strong feeling that having been the one who began the game she ought in honesty to accept the consequences. Still the reluctance remained. She said in the same breath that it would be ungenerous not to marry Boldwood, and that she couldn't do it to save her life.

Bathsheba's was an impulsive nature under a deliberative aspect. Ar Elizabeth in brain and a Mary Stuart in spirit, she often performed actions of the greatest temerity with a manner of extreme discretion. Many of her thoughts were perfect syllogisms; unluckily they always remained thoughts. Only a few were irrational assumptions; but, unfortunately, they were the ones which most frequently grew into deeds.

The next day to that of the declaration, she found Gabriel Oak at the bottom of her garden, grinding his shears for the sheep-shearing. All the surrounding cottages were more or less scenes of the same operation; the scurr of whetting spread into the sky from all parts of the village as from an armoury previous to a campaign. Peace and war kiss each other at their hours of preparation, sickles, scythes, shears, and pruning-hooks

mingling with swords, bayonets, and lances, in their common necessity for point and edge.

Cainy Ball turned the handle of Gabriel's grindstone, his head performing a melancholy see-saw up and down with each turn of the wheel. Oak stood somewhat as Eros is represented when in the act of sharpening his arrows: his figure slightly bent, the weight of his body thrown over on the shears, and his head balanced sideways, with a critical compression of the lips and contraction of the eyelids to crown the attitude.

His mistress came up and looked upon them in silence for a minute or two; then she said,

66

Cain, go to the lower mead and catch the bay mare. I'll turn the inch of the grindstone. I want to speak to you, Gabriel."

Cain departed, and Bathsheba took the handle. Gabriel had glanced up in intense surprise, quelled its expression, and looked down again. Bathsheba turned the winch, and Gabriel applied the shears.

The peculiar motion involved in turning a wheel has a wonderful tendency to benumb the mind. It is a sort of attenuated variety of tion's punishment, and contributes a dismal chapter to the history of aols. The brain gets muddled, the head grows heavy, and the body's centre of gravity seems to settle by degrees in a leaden lump somewhere between the eyebrows and the crown. Bathsheba felt the unpleasant

symptoms after two or three dozen turns. "Will you turn, Gabriel, and let me hold the shears?" she said. My head is in a whirl, and I can't talk."

Gabriel turned. Bathsheba then began, with some awkwardness, allowing her thoughts to stray occasionally from her story to attend to the shears, which required a little nicety in sharpening.

"I wanted to ask you if the men made any observations on my going behind the sedge with Mr. Boldwood yesterday?"

"Yes, they did," said Gabriel. "You don't hold the shears right, Miss-I knew you wouldn't know the way—hold like this.”

his own

He relinquished the winch, and enclosing her two hands completely in (taking each as we sometimes clasp a child's hand in teaching him to write), grasped the shears with her. "Incline the edge so," he said. Hands and shears were inclined to suit the words, and held thus for a peculiarly long time by the instructor as he spoke.

"That will do," exclaimed Bathsheba. "Loose my hands. I won't have them held ! Turn the winch."

Gabriel freed her hands quietly, retired to his handle, and the grinding went on.

"Did the men think it odd ?" she said again.

"Odd was not the idea, Miss.”

"What did they say?"

"That Farmer Boldwood's name and your own were likely to be flung over pulpit together before the year was out."

"I thought so by the look of them! Why, there's nothing in it. A more foolish remark was never made, and I want you to contradict it: that's what I came for."

Gabriel looked incredulous and sad, but between his movements & incredulity, relieved.

"They must have heard our conversation," she continued.

"Well, then, Bathsheba!" said Oak, stopping the handle, and gazing into her face with astonishment.

"Miss Everdene, you mean," she said, with dignity.

"I mean this, that if Mr. Boldwood really spoke of marriage, I am not going to tell a story and say he didn't to please you. I have already tried to please you too much for my own good."

Bathsheba regarded him with round-eyed perplexity. She did know whether to pity him for disappointed love of her, or to be ang with him for having got over it-his tone being ambiguous.

"I said I wanted you just to mention that it was not true I wa going to be married to him," she murmured, with a slight decline in her

assurance.

"I can say that to them if you wish, Miss Everdene. And I could likewise give an opinion to you on what you have done."

"I daresay. But I don't want your opinion."

"I suppose not," said Gabriel bitterly, and going on with his turning, his words rising and falling in a regular swell and cadence as he stooped or rose with the winch, which directed them, according to his position, perpendicularly into the earth, or horizontally along the garden, his eɲɛ being fixed on a leaf upon the ground.

With Bathsheba a hastened act was a rash act; but, as does no always happen, time gained was prudence ensured. It must be added, however, that time was very seldom gained. At this period the single opinion in the parish on herself and her doings that she valued as sounder than her own was Gabriel Oak's. And the outspoken honesty of his character was such that on any subject, even that of her love for, or marriage with, another man, the same disinterestedness of opinion might be calculated on, and be had for the asking. Thoroughly convinced of the impossibility of his own suit, a high resolve constrained him not to injure that of another. This is a lover's most stoical virtue, as the lack of it is a lover's most venial sin. Knowing he would reply truly, she asked the question, painful as she must have known the subject would be. Such is the selfishness of some charming women. Perhaps it was some excuse for her thus torturing honesty to her own advantage, that she had absolutely no other sound judgment within easy reach.

"Well, what is your opinion of my conduct ?" she said, quietly. "That it is unworthy of any thoughtful, and meek, and comely woman." In an instant Bathsheba's face coloured with the angry crimson of a Danby sunset. But she forbore to utter this feeling, and the reticence of her tongue only made the loquacity of her face the more noticeable.