Thomas Hardy

“ With an audacity unparalleled in the whole history of village-school-mistresses at this date—partly owing, no doubt, to papa’s respectable accumulation of cash, which rendered her profession not altogether one of necessity—she had actually donned a hat and feather, and lowered her hitherto plainly looped-up hair, which now fell about her shoulders in a profusion of curls. Poor Dick was astonished: he had never seen her look so distractingly beautiful before, save on Christmas-eve, when her hair was in the same luxuriant condition of freedom. ”

“ But I do take a little delight in my life, I suppose,” she pouted.
“Apart from mine?”
She looked at him with perplexed eyes. “I know you are vexed with me, Dick, and it is because the first Sunday I have curls and a hat and feather since I have been here happens to be the very day you are away and won’t be with me. Yes, say it is, for that is it! And you think that all this week I ought to have remembered you wouldn’t be here to-day, and not have cared to be better dressed than usual. Yes, you do, Dick, and it is rather unkind!” ”

“ Striking, therefore, into the lane towards the school, instead of across the ewelease direct to Charmley, he arrived opposite her door as his goddess emerged.
If ever a woman looked a divinity, Fancy Day appeared one that morning as she floated down those school steps, in the form of a nebulous collection of colours inclining to blue. ”