Thomas Hardy

“ DEAR MISS DAY,—The meaning of your words, ‘the temptation is too strong,’ of your sadness and your tears, has been brought home to me by an accident. I know to-day what I did not know yesterday—that you are not a free woman. “Why did you not tell me—why didn’t you? Did you suppose I knew? No. Had I known, my conduct in coming to you as I did would have been reprehensible. “But I don’t chide you! Perhaps no blame attaches to you—I can’t tell. Fancy, though my opinion of you is assailed and disturbed in a way which cannot be expressed, I love you still, and my word to you holds good yet. ”

“ A low and merry whistling was heard on the highway he was approaching, then the light footsteps of a man going in the same direction as himself. On reaching the junction of his path with the road, the vicar beheld Dick Dewy’s open and cheerful face. Dick lifted his hat, and the vicar came out into the highway that Dick was pursuing. ”

“ I shall by that time be the regular manager of a branch o’ father’s business, which has very much increased lately, and business, which we think of starting elsewhere. It has very much increased lately, and we expect next year to keep a’ extra couple of horses. We’ve already our eye on one—brown as a berry, neck like a rainbow, fifteen hands, and not a gray hair in her—offered us at twenty-five want a crown. And to kip pace with the times I have had some cards prented and I beg leave to hand you one, sir.”
“Certainly,” said the vicar, mechanically taking the card that Dick offered him. ”