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 and he’s now mastering dairy-work. Yes, he is quite the gentleman-born. His father is the Reverent Mr. Clare at Emminster—a good many miles from here.’

‘Oh—I have heard of him,’ said her companion, now awake, ‘A very earnest clergyman, is he not?’

‘Yes—that he is—the earnestest man in all Wessex, they say—the last of the old Low Church sort, they tell me—for all about here be what they call High. All his sons, except our Mr. Clare, be made pa’sons too.’

Tess had not at this hour the curiosity to ask why the present Mr. Clare was not made a parson like his brethren, and gradually fell asleep again, the words of her informant coming to her along with the smell of the cheeses in the adjoining cheese-loft, and the measured dripping of the whey from the wrings downstairs.