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 but on second thoughts would not trouble him. ‘I have said that I will wait for ’em, and they will expect me to now.’

‘Very well, silly! Please yourself.’

As soon as he had re-lit a cigar and walked away the Trantridge villagers within began also to recollect how time was flying, and prepared to leave in a body. Their bundles and baskets were gathered up, and half an hour later, when the clock-chime sounded a quarter past eleven, they were straggling along the lane which led up the hill towards their homes.

It was a three-mile walk, along a dry white road, made whiter to-night by the light of the moon.

Tess soon perceived as she walked in the flock, sometimes with this one, sometimes with that, that the fresh night air was producing staggerings and serpentine courses among the men who had partaken too freely; some of the more careless women also were wandering in their gait—to wit, a dark virago, Car Darch, dubbed Queen of Spades, till lately a favourite of D’Urberville’s; Nancy, her sister, nicknamed the Queen of Diamonds; and a young married