goer of simple faith; honest-hearted, receptive, intelligent,
graceful to a degree, chaste as a vestal, and, in personal appearance,
exceptionally beautiful.
    »Is she of a family such as you would care to marry into - a lady, in
short?« asked his startled mother, who had come softly into the study during the
conversation.
    »She is not what in common parlance is called a lady,« said Angel,
unflinchingly, »for she is a cottager's daughter, as I am proud to say. But she
is a lady, nevertheless - in feeling and nature.«
    »Mercy Chant is of a very good family.«
    »Pooh! - what's the advantage of that, mother?« said Angel quickly. »How is
family to avail the wife of a man who has to rough it as I have, and shall have
to do?«
    »Mercy is accomplished. And accomplishments have their charm,« returned his
mother, looking at him through her silver spectacles.
    »As to external accomplishments, what will be the use of them in the life I
am going to lead? - while as to her reading, I can take that in hand. She'll be
apt pupil enough, as you would say if you knew her. She's brim full of poetry -
actualized poetry, if I may use the expression. She lives what paper-poets only
write. ... And she is an unimpeachable Christian, I am sure; perhaps of the very
tribe, genus, and species you desire to propagate.«
    »O Angel, you are mocking!«
    »Mother, I beg pardon. But as she really does attend Church almost every
Sunday morning, and is a good Christian girl, I am sure you will tolerate any
social shortcomings for the sake of that quality, and feel that I may do worse
than choose her.« Angel waxed quite earnest on that rather automatic orthodoxy
in his beloved Tess which (never dreaming that it might stand him in such good
stead) he had been prone to slight when observing it practised by her and the
other milkmaids, because of its obvious unreality amid beliefs essentially
naturalistic.
    In their sad doubts as to whether their son had himself any right whatever
to the title he claimed for the unknown young woman, Mr. and Mrs. Clare began to
feel it as an advantage not to be overlooked that she at least was sound in her
views; especially as the conjunction of the pair must have arisen by an act of
Providence; for Angel never would
