She was such a childlike, nesh young
thing that her spirit couldn't appear to anybody if it
tried, I'm quite sure."
"O no, no! You go to bed. I'll sit up for him
myself till twelve o'clock, and if he has not arrived by
that time, I shall give him up and go to bed too."
It is half-past ten now."
"Oh! is it?"
Why don't you sit upstairs, ma'am?"
"Why don't I?" said Bathsheba, desultorily. "It
isn't worth while -- there's a fire here, Liddy." She
suddenly exclaimed in an impulsive and excited whisper,
Have you heard anything strange said of Fanny?"
The words had no sooner escaped her than an expres-
sion of unutterable regret crossed her face, and she
burst into tears.
"No -- not a word!" said Liddy, looking at the
weeping woman with astonishment. "What is it makes
you cry so, ma'am; has anything hurt you?" She came
to Bathsheba's side with a face full of sympathy.
"No, Liddy-i don't want you any more. I can
hardly say why I have taken to crying lately: I never
used to cry. Good-night."
Liddy then left the parlour and closed the door.
Bathsheba was lonely and miserable now; not lone-
lier actually than she had been before her marriage;
but her loneliness then was to that of the present time
as the solitude of a mountain is to the solitude of a
cave.
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