"The break o' the day": Arise, arise, arise!

And pick your love a posy,

All o' the sweetest flowers

That in the garden grow.

The turtle doves and sma' birds

In every bough a-building,

So early in the May-time

At the break o' the day!

It would have melted the heart of a stone to hear her singing these

ditties whenever she worked apart from the rest of the girls in this

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cold dry time; the tears running down her cheeks all the while at the

thought that perhaps he would not, after all, come to hear her, and

the simple silly words of the songs resounding in painful mockery of

the aching heart of the singer.

Tess was so wrapt up in this fanciful dream that she seemed not to

know how the season was advancing; that the days had lengthened, that

Lady-Day was at hand, and would soon be followed by Old Lady-Day, the

end of her term here.

But before the quarter-day had quite come, something happened which

made Tess think of far different matters. She was at her lodging as

usual one evening, sitting in the downstairs room with the rest of

the family, when somebody knocked at the door and inquired for Tess.

Through the doorway she saw against the declining light a figure

with the height of a woman and the breadth of a child, a tall, thin,

girlish creature whom she did not recognize in the twilight till the

girl said "Tess!" "What--is it 'Liza-Lu?" asked Tess, in startled accents. Her sister,

whom a little over a year ago she had left at home as a child, had

sprung up by a sudden shoot to a form of this presentation, of which

as yet Lu seemed herself scarce able to understand the meaning.

Her thin legs, visible below her once-long frock, now short by her

growing, and her uncomfortable hands and arms revealed her youth and

inexperience. "Yes, I have been traipsing about all day, Tess," said Lu, with

unemotional gravity, "a-trying to find 'ee; and I'm very tired."

"What is the matter at home?"

"Mother is took very bad, and the doctor says she's dying, and as

father is not very well neither, and says 'tis wrong for a man of

such a high family as his to slave and drave at common labouring

work, we don't know what to do."

Tess stood in reverie a long time before she thought of asking

'Liza-Lu to come in and sit down. When she had done so, and 'Liza-Lu

was having some tea, she came to a decision. It was imperative that

she should go home. Her agreement did not end till Old Lady-Day, the

sixth of April, but as the interval thereto was not a long one she

resolved to run the risk of starting at once.




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