Take it or leave it -- be offended
or like it -- I don't care."
"Who are you, then, who can so well afford to
despise opinion?"
"No stranger. Sergeant Troy. I am staying in
this place. -- There! it is undone at last, you see.
Your light fingers were more eager than mine. I wish it
had been the knot of knots, which there's no untying!"
This was worse and worse. She started up, and so
did he. How to decently get away from him -- that
was her difficulty now. She sidled off inch by inch,
the lantern in her hand, till she could see the redness
of his coat no longer.
"Ah, Beauty; good-bye!" he said.
She made no reply, and, reaching a distance of
twenty or thirty yards, turned about, and ran indoors.
Liddy had just retired to rest. In ascending to her
own chamber, Bathsheba opened the girl's door an
inch or two, and, panting, said --
"Liddy, is any soldier staying in the village --
sergeant somebody -- rather gentlemanly for a sergeant,
and good looking -- a red coat with blue facings?"
"No, miss ... No, I say; but really it might be
Sergeant Troy home on furlough, though I have not
seen him.
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