She hated
herself now. In those earlier days she had always
nourished a secret contempt for girls who were the
slaves of the first goodlooking young fellow who should
choose to salute them. She had never taken kindly to
the idea of marriage in the abstract as did the majority
of women she saw about her. In the turmoil of her
anxiety for her lover she had agreed to marry him; but
the perception that had accompanied her happiest hours
on this account was rather that of self-sacrifice than of
promotion and honour. Although she scarcely knew
the divinity's name, Diana was the goddess whom
Bathsheba instinctively adored. That she had never,
by look, word, or sign, encouraged a man to approach
her -- that she had felt herself sufficient to herself, and
had in the independence of her girlish heart fancied
there was a certain degradation in renouncing the
simplicity of a maiden existence to become the humbler
half of an indifferent matrimonial whole -- were facts
now bitterly remembered. O, if she had never
stooped to folly of this kind, respectable as it was, and
could only stand again, as she had stood on the hill at
Norcombe, and dare Troy or any other man to pollute
a hair of her head by his interference!
The next morning she rose earlier than usual, and
had the horse saddled for her ride round the farm in
the customary way.
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