When she came in at half-past
eight -- their usual hour for breakfasting -- she was in-
formed that her husband had risen, taken his breakfast,
and driven off to Casterbridge with the gig and Poppet.
After breakfast she was cool and collected -- quite
herself in fact -- and she rambled to the gate, intending
to walk to another quarter of the farm, which she still
personally superintended as well as her duties in the
house would permit, continually, however, finding her-
self preceded in forethought by Gabriel Oak, for whom
she began to entertain the genuine friendship of a sister.
Of course, she sometimes thought of him in the light of
an old lover, and had momentary imaginings of what
life with him as a husband would have been like; also
of life with Boldwood under the same conditions. But
Bathsheba, though she could feel, was not much given
to futile dreaming, and her musings under this head
were short and entirely confined to the times when
Troy's neglect was more than ordinarily evident.
She saw coming up the road a man like Mr. Boldwood.
It was Mr. Boldwood.
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