Thomas Hardy

“ Enter the single-minded Dick, whose only fault at the gipsying, or picnic, had been that of loving Fancy too exclusively, and depriving himself of the innocent pleasure the gathering might have afforded him, by sighing regretfully at her absence,—who had danced with the rival in sheer despair of ever being able to get through that stale, flat, and unprofitable afternoon in any other way ”

“ And there is something more serious, though not concerning that walk with him.”
“Well, what is it?” said Dick, altering his mind about walking to the Colonies; in fact, passing to the other extreme, and standing so rooted to the road that he was apparently not even going home.
“Why this,” she said, drying the beginning of a new flood of tears she had been going to shed, “this is the serious part. Father has told Mr. Shiner that he would like him for a son-in-law, if he could get me;—that he has his right hearty consent to come courting me!” ”

“ It was a morning of the latter summer-time; a morning of lingering dews, when the grass is never dry in the shade. Fuchsias and dahlias were laden till eleven o’clock with small drops and dashes of water, changing the colour of their sparkle at every movement of the air ”