 had less
terror for her than his coldness. The increasing frequency of the latter mood
told her the sad news that he disliked her with a growing dislike. The more
interesting that her appearance and manners became under the softening
influences which she could now command, and in her wisdom did command, the more
she seemed to estrange him. Sometimes she caught him looking at her with a
louring invidiousness that she could hardly bear. Not knowing his secret it was
a cruel mockery that she should for the first time excite his animosity when she
had taken his surname.
    But the most terrible ordeal was to come. Elizabeth had latterly been
accustomed of an afternoon to present a cup of cider or ale and bread-and-cheese
to Nance Mockridge, who worked in the yard wimbling hay-bonds. Nance accepted
this offering thankfully at first; afterwards as a matter of course. On a day
when Henchard was on the premises he saw his stepdaughter enter the hay-barn on
this errand; and, as there was no clear spot on which to deposit the provisions,
she at once set to work arranging two trusses of hay as a table, Mockridge
meanwhile standing with her hands on her hips, easefully looking at the
preparations on her behalf.
    »Elizabeth, come here!« said Henchard; and she obeyed.
    »Why do you lower yourself so confoundedly?« he said with suppressed
passion. »Haven't I told you o't fifty times? Hey? Making yourself a drudge for
a common workwoman of such a character as hers! Why, ye'll disgrace me to the
dust!«
    Now these words were uttered loud enough to reach Nance inside the barn
door, who fired up immediately at the slur upon her personal character. Coming
to the door she cried, regardless of consequences, »Come to that, Mr. Michael
Henchard, I can let 'ee know she've waited on worse!«
    »Then she must have had more charity than sense,« said Henchard.
    »O no, she hadn't. 'Twere not for charity but for hire; and at a
public-house in this town!«
    »It is not true!« cried Henchard indignantly.
    »Just ask her,« said Nance, folding her naked arms in such a manner that she
could comfortably scratch her elbows.
    Henchard glanced at Elizabeth-Jane, whose complexion, now pink and white
from confinement, lost nearly all of the former colour. »What does this mean?«
he said to her. »Anything or nothing?«
    »It is true,
