It was Dairyman Crick's rule to insist on breaking down these

partialities and aversions by constant interchange, since otherwise,

in the event of a milkman or maid going away from the dairy, he was

placed in a difficulty. The maids' private aims, however, were the

reverse of the dairyman's rule, the daily selection by each damsel of

the eight or ten cows to which she had grown accustomed rendering the

operation on their willing udders surprisingly easy and effortless.

Tess, like her compeers, soon discovered which of the cows had a

preference for her style of manipulation, and her fingers having

become delicate from the long domiciliary imprisonments to which

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she had subjected herself at intervals during the last two or three

years, she would have been glad to meet the milchers' views in

this respect. Out of the whole ninety-five there were eight in

particular--Dumpling, Fancy, Lofty, Mist, Old Pretty, Young Pretty,

Tidy, and Loud--who, though the teats of one or two were as hard as

carrots, gave down to her with a readiness that made her work on them

a mere touch of the fingers. Knowing, however, the dairyman's wish,

she endeavoured conscientiously to take the animals just as they

came, expecting the very hard yielders which she could not yet

manage. But she soon found a curious correspondence between the ostensibly

chance position of the cows and her wishes in this matter, till she

felt that their order could not be the result of accident. The

dairyman's pupil had lent a hand in getting the cows together of

late, and at the fifth or sixth time she turned her eyes, as she

rested against the cow, full of sly inquiry upon him.

"Mr Clare, you have ranged the cows!" she said, blushing; and in

making the accusation, symptoms of a smile gently lifted her upper

lip in spite of her, so as to show the tips of her teeth, the lower

lip remaining severely still.

"Well, it makes no difference," said he."You will always be here to

milk them."

"Do you think so? I HOPE I shall! But I don't KNOW."

She was angry with herself afterwards, thinking that he, unaware of

her grave reasons for liking this seclusion, might have mistaken her

meaning. She had spoken so earnestly to him, as if his presence

were somehow a factor in her wish. Her misgiving was such that at

dusk, when the milking was over, she walked in the garden alone, to

continue her regrets that she had disclosed to him her discovery of

his considerateness. It was a typical summer evening in June, the atmosphere being in

such delicate equilibrium and so transmissive that inanimate objects

seemed endowed with two or three senses, if not five. There was no

distinction between the near and the far, and an auditor felt close

to everything within the horizon. The soundlessness impressed her as

a positive entity rather than as the mere negation of noise. It was

broken by the strumming of strings.




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