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 ‘No,’ said the latter touchily, ‘I am not agreed, I have been waiting for ’ee to bide and keep house while I go to fetch him.’

‘I’ll go.’

‘Oh no, Tess. You see, it would be no use.’

Tess did not expostulate. She knew what her mother’s objection meant. Mrs. Durbeyfield’s jacket and bonnet were already hanging slily upon a chair by her side, in readiness for this contemplated jaunt, the reason for which the matron deplored more than its necessity.

‘And take the Complete Fortune-Teller to the outhouse,’ she continued, rapidly wiping her hands, and donning the garments.

The Complete Fortune-Teller was an old thick volume, which lay on a table at her elbow, so worn by pocketing that the margins had reached the edge of the type. Tess took it up, and her mother started.

This going to hunt up her shiftless husband at the inn was one of Mrs. Durbeyfield’s still extant enjoyments in the muck and muddle of rearing children. To discover him at Rolliver’s, to sit there for an hour or two by his side and dismiss all thought and care of the children during the