DEAR TESS,-J write these few lines Hoping they will find you well,

as they leave me at Present, thank God for it. Dear

Tess, we are all glad to Hear that you are going really

to be married soon. But with respect to your question,

Tess, J say between ourselves, quite private but very

strong, that on no account do you say a word of your

Bygone Trouble to him. J did not tell everything

to your Father, he being so Proud on account of his

Respectability, which, perhaps, your Intended is

the same. Many a woman--some of the Highest in the

Advertisement..

Land--have had a Trouble in their time; and why should

you Trumpet yours when others don't Trumpet theirs? No

girl would be such a Fool, specially as it is so long

ago, and not your Fault at all. J shall answer the

same if you ask me fifty times. Besides, you must bear

in mind that, knowing it to be your Childish Nature to

tell all that's in your heart--so simple!--J made you

promise me never to let it out by Word or Deed, having

your Welfare in my Mind; and you most solemnly did

promise it going from this Door. J have not named

either that Question or your coming marriage to your

Father, as he would blab it everywhere, poor Simple

Man. Dear Tess, keep up your Spirits, and we mean to send

you a Hogshead of Cyder for you Wedding, knowing there

is not much in your parts, and thin Sour Stuff what

there is. So no more at present, and with kind love

to your Young Man.--From your affectte. Mother, J. DURBEYFIELD

"O mother, mother!" murmured Tess.

She was recognizing how light was the touch of events the most

oppressive upon Mrs Durbeyfield's elastic spirit. Her mother did not

see life as Tess saw it. That haunting episode of bygone days was

to her mother but a passing accident. But perhaps her mother was

right as to the course to be followed, whatever she might be in her

reasons. Silence seemed, on the face of it, best for her adored

one's happiness: silence it should be.

Thus steadied by a command from the only person in the world who had

any shadow of right to control her action, Tess grew calmer. The

responsibility was shifted, and her heart was lighter than it had

been for weeks. The days of declining autumn which followed her

assent, beginning with the month of October, formed a season through

which she lived in spiritual altitudes more nearly approaching

ecstasy than any other period of her life.




Most Popular