Page:Hardy - Jude the Obscure, 1896.djvu/484

 VII

was preparing breakfast in the down-stairs room of this small, recently hired tenement of her father's. She put her head into the little pork-shop in front, and told Mr. Donn it was ready. Donn, endeavoring to look like a master pork-butcher, in a greasy blue blouse, and with a strap round his waist from which a steel dangled, came in promptly.

"You must mind the shop this morning," he said, casually. "I've to go and get some inwards and half a pig from Lumsdon, and to call elsewhere. If you live here you must put your shoulder to the wheel, at least till I get the business started!"

"Well, for to-day I can't say." She looked deedily into his face. "I've got a prize up-stairs."

"Oh!—What's that?"

"A husband—almost."

"No!"

"Yes. It's Jude. He's come back to me."

"Your old original one? Well, I'm damned!"

"Well, I always did like him, that I will say."

"But how does he come to be up there?" said Donn, humor-struck, and nodding to the ceiling.

"Don't ask inconvenient questions, father. What we've to do is to keep him here till he and I are—as we were."

"How was that?"

"Married."

"Ah.... Well, it is the rummest thing I ever heard of—marrying an old husband again, and so much new blood