`Never mind that now!' she exclaimed.

`Did you say the stars were worlds, Tess?'

`Yes.'

`All like ours?'

`I don't know; but I think so. They sometimes seem to be like apples on our stubbard tree. Most of them splendid and sound a few blighted.'

`Which do we live on - a splendid one or a blighted one?'

`A blighted one.'

`'Tis very unlucky that we didn't pitch on a sound one, when there were so many more of `em!'

`Yes.'

`Is it like that really, Tess said Abraham, turning to her much impressed, on reconsideration of this rare information. `How would it have been if we had pitched on a sound one?'

`Well, father wouldn't have coughed and creeped about as he does, and wouldn't have got too tipsy to go this journey; and mother wouldn't have been always washing, and never getting finished.'

`And you would have been a rich lady read-ymade, and not have had to be made rich by marrying a gentleman?'

`O Aby, don't - don't talk of that any more!'

Left to his reflections Abraham soon grew drowsy. Tess was not skilful in the management of a horse, but she thought that she could take upon herself the entire conduct of the load for the present, and allow Abraham to go to sleep if he wished to do so. She made him a sort of nest in front of the hives, in such a manner that he could not fall, and, taking the reins into her own hands, jogged on as before.

Prince required but slight attention, lacking energy for superfluous movements of any sort. With no longer a companion to distract her, Tess fell more deeply into reverie than ever, her back leaning against the hives. The mute procession past her shoulders of trees and hedges became attached to fantastic scenes outside reality, and the occasional heave of the wind became the sigh of some immense sad soul, conterminous with the universe in space, and with history in time.

Then, examining the mesh of events in her own life, she seemed to see the vanity of her father's pride; the gentlemanly suitor awaiting herself in her mother's fancy; to see him as a grimacing personage, laughing at her poverty, and her shrouded knightly ancestry. Everything grew more and more extravagant, and she no longer knew how time passed. A sudden jerk shook her in her seat, and Tess awoke from the sleep into which she, too, had fallen.

They were a long way further on than when she had lost consciousness, and the waggon had stopped. A hollow groan, unlike anything she had ever heard in her life, came from the front, followed by a shout of `Hoi there!'

The lantern hanging at her waggon had gone out, but another was shining in her face - much brighter than her own had been. Something terrible had happened. The harness was entangled with an object which blocked the way.