females. But Lord's my life - the world's no memory; straightforward dealings don't bring profit--'tis the sly and the underhand that get on in these times!"

Mrs Newson glanced round - her daughter was still bending over the distant stalls. "Can you call to mind," she said cautiously to the old woman, "the sale of a wife by her husband in your tent eighteen years ago today?"

The hag reflected, and half shook her head. "If it had been a big thing I should have minded it in a moment," she said. 'I can mind every serious fight o' married parties, every murder, every manslaughter, even every pocket-picking - leastwise large ones - that 't has been my lot to witness. But a selling? Was it done quite-like?"

"Well, yes. I think so."

The furmity woman half shook her head again. "And yet," she said, "I do. At any rate, I can mind a man doing something o'the sort - a man in a cord jacket, with a basket of tools; but, Lord bless ye, we don't gi'e it head-room, we don't, such as that. The only reason why I can mind the man is that he came back here to the next year's fair, and told me quite private-like that if a woman ever asked for him I was to say he had gone to - where? - Casterbridge - yes - to Casterbridge, said he. But, Lord's, my life, I shouldn't ha' thought of it again!"

Mrs Newson would have rewarded the old woman as far as her small means afforded had she not discreetly borne in mind that it was by that unscrupulous person's liquor her husband had been degraded. She briefly thanked her informant, and rejoined Elizabeth, who greeted her with, "Mother, do let's go on - it was hardly respectable for you to buy refreshment there. I see none but the lowest do."

"I have learned what I wanted, however," said her mother quietly. "The last time our relative visited this fair he said he was living at Casterbridge. It is a long, long way from here, and it was many years ago that he said it; but there I think we'll go."

With this they descended out of the fair, and went onward to the village, where they obtained a night's lodging.