Page:Tess of the D'Urbervilles (1891 Volume 2).pdf/172

 there came into her head her mother’s ballad of the mystic robe—

which Mrs. Durbeyfield had used to sing to her as a child, so blithely and so archly, her foot on the cradle, which she rocked to the tune. Suppose this robe should betray her by changing colour, as her robe had betrayed Queen Guénever. Since she had been at the dairy she had not once thought of the lines till now.