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 Her mother surveyed the girl up and down with arch approval, and went on banteringly: ‘So you’ve brought ‘em round!’

‘How do you know, mother?’

‘I’ve had a letter.’

Tess then remembered that there would have been just time for this.

‘They say—Mrs. D’Urberville says—that she wants you to look after a little poultry-farm which is her hobby. But this is only her artful way of getting you there without raising your hopes. She’s going to acknowledge ’ee as kin—that’s the meaning o’t.’

‘But I didn’t see her.’

‘You zid somebody, I suppose?’

‘I saw her son.’

‘And did he acknowledge ‘ee?’

‘Well—he called me Coz.’

‘An’ I knew it! Jacky—he called her Coz!’ cried Joan to her husband. ‘Well, he spoke to his mother, of course, and she do want ’ee there.’

‘But I don’t know that I am apt at managing fowls,’ said the dubious Tess.

‘Then I don’t know who is apt. You’ve be’n born in the business, and brought up in it. They