Marty, of course, went to the front shop, and handed her packet to him

silently. "Thank you," said the barber, quite joyfully. "I hardly

expected it after what you said last night."

She turned aside, while a tear welled up and stood in each eye at this

reminder.

"Nothing of what I told you," he whispered, there being others in the

shop. "But I can trust you, I see."

She had now reached the end of this distressing business, and went

listlessly along the street to attend to other errands. These occupied

her till four o'clock, at which time she recrossed the market-place.

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It was impossible to avoid rediscovering Winterborne every time she

passed that way, for standing, as he always did at this season of the

year, with his specimen apple-tree in the midst, the boughs rose above

the heads of the crowd, and brought a delightful suggestion of orchards

among the crowded buildings there. When her eye fell upon him for the

last time he was standing somewhat apart, holding the tree like an

ensign, and looking on the ground instead of pushing his produce as he

ought to have been doing. He was, in fact, not a very successful

seller either of his trees or of his cider, his habit of speaking his

mind, when he spoke at all, militating against this branch of his

business.

While she regarded him he suddenly lifted his eyes in a direction away

from Marty, his face simultaneously kindling with recognition and

surprise. She followed his gaze, and saw walking across to him a

flexible young creature in whom she perceived the features of her she

had known as Miss Grace Melbury, but now looking glorified and refined

above her former level. Winterborne, being fixed to the spot by his

apple-tree, could not advance to meet her; he held out his spare hand

with his hat in it, and with some embarrassment beheld her coming on

tiptoe through the mud to the middle of the square where he stood.

Miss Melbury's arrival so early was, as Marty could see, unexpected by

Giles, which accounted for his not being ready to receive her. Indeed,

her father had named five o'clock as her probable time, for which

reason that hour had been looming out all the day in his forward

perspective, like an important edifice on a plain. Now here she was

come, he knew not how, and his arranged welcome stultified.

His face became gloomy at her necessity for stepping into the road, and

more still at the little look of embarrassment which appeared on hers

at having to perform the meeting with him under an apple-tree ten feet

high in the middle of the market-place. Having had occasion to take off

the new gloves she had bought to come home in, she held out to him a

hand graduating from pink at the tips of the fingers to white at the

palm; and the reception formed a scene, with the tree over their heads,

which was not by any means an ordinary one in Sherton Abbas streets.




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