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 close to his house; partly, too, for a reason which moved many others to be spectators of the ceremony; a subconsciousness that, though the couple might be happy in their experiences, there was sufficient possibility of their being otherwise to colour the musings of an onlooker with a pleasing pathos of conjecture. He could on occasion do a pretty stroke of rhyming in those days, and he beguiled the time of waiting by penciling on a blank page of his prayer-book a few lines which, though kept private then, may be given here:—

As if, however, to falsify all prophecies, the couple seemed to find in marriage the secret of perpetuating the intoxication of a courtship which, on Maumbry's side at least, had opened without serious intent. During the winter following they were the most popular pair in and about Casterbridge—nay in South Wessex itself. No smart dinner in the country-houses of the younger and gayer families within driving distance of the borough was complete without their lively presence; Mrs. Maumbry was the blithest of the whirling figures at the county ball; and when followed that inevitable incident of garrison town life, an amateur dramatic entertainment, it was just the same. The acting was for the benefit of such and such an excellent charity-nobody cared what, provided the play were played-and both Captain Maumbry and his wife were in the piece, having been in fact, by mutual consent, the originators of the performance. And so with