 is where my people really belong to, though my ancestors in Jersey were as
good as anybody in England. They were the Le Sueurs, an old family who have done
great things in their time. I went back and lived there after my father's death.
But I don't value such past matters, and am quite an English person in my
feelings and tastes.«
    Lucetta's tongue had for a moment outrun her discretion. She had arrived at
Casterbridge as a Bath lady, and there were obvious reasons why Jersey should
drop out of her life. But Elizabeth had tempted her to make free, and a
deliberately formed resolve had been broken.
    It could not, however, have been broken in safer company. Lucetta's words
went no further, and after this day she was so much upon her guard that there
appeared no chance of her identification with the young Jersey woman who had
been Henchard's dear comrade at a critical time. Not the least amusing of her
safeguards was her resolute avoidance of a French word if one by accident came
to her tongue more readily than its English equivalent. She shirked it with the
suddenness of the weak Apostle at the accusation, »Thy speech bewrayeth thee!«
    Expectancy sat visibly upon Lucetta the next morning. She dressed herself
for Mr. Henchard, and restlessly awaited his call before mid-day; as he did not
come she waited on through the afternoon. But she did not tell Elizabeth that
the person expected was the girl's stepfather.
    They sat in adjoining windows of the same room in Lucetta's great stone
mansion, netting, and looking out upon the market, which formed an animated
scene. Elizabeth could see the crown of her stepfather's hat among the rest
beneath, and was not aware that Lucetta watched the same object with yet
intenser interest. He moved about amid the throng, at this point lively as an
ant-hill; elsewhere more reposeful, and broken up by stalls of fruit and
vegetables. The farmers as a rule preferred the open carrefour for their
transactions, despite its inconvenient jostlings and the danger from crossing
vehicles, to the gloomy sheltered market-room provided for them. Here they
surged on this one day of the week, forming a little world of leggings,
switches, and sample-bags; men of extensive stomachs, sloping like mountain
sides; men whose heads in walking swayed as the trees in November gales; who in
conversing varied their attitudes much, lowering themselves by spreading their
knees, and thrusting their hands into the pockets of remote inner jackets. Their
faces
