, as the mediæval saying puts it, »Take, have, and keep, are pleasant words.«
With peace of mind came development, and with development beauty. Knowledge -
the result of great natural insight - she did not lack; learning,
accomplishments - those, alas, she had not; but as the winter and spring passed
by her thin face and figure filled out in rounder and softer curves; the lines
and contractions upon her young brow went away; the muddiness of skin which she
had looked upon as her lot by nature departed with a change to abundance of good
things, and a bloom came upon her cheek. Perhaps, too, her grey, thoughtful eyes
revealed an arch gaiety sometimes; but this was infrequent; the sort of wisdom
which looked from their pupils did not readily keep company with these lighter
moods. Like all people who have known rough times, light-heartedness seemed to
her too irrational and inconsequent to be indulged in except as a reckless dram
now and then; for she had been too early habituated to anxious reasoning to drop
the habit suddenly. She felt none of those ups and downs of spirit which beset
so many people without cause; never - to paraphrase a recent poet - never a
gloom in Elizabeth-Jane's soul but she well knew how it came there; and her
present cheerfulness was fairly proportionate to her solid guarantees for the
same.
    It might have been supposed that, given a girl rapidly becoming
good-looking, comfortably circumstanced, and for the first time in her life
commanding ready money, she would go and make a fool of herself by dress. But
no. The reasonableness of almost everything that Elizabeth did was nowhere more
conspicuous than in this question of clothes. To keep in the rear of opportunity
in matters of indulgence is as valuable a habit as to keep abreast of
opportunity in matters of enterprise. This unsophisticated girl did it by an
innate perceptiveness that was almost genius. Thus she refrained from bursting
out like a water-flower that spring, and clothing herself in puffings and
knick-knacks, as most of the Casterbridge girls would have done in her
circumstances. Her triumph was tempered by circumspection; she had still that
field-mouse fear of the coulter of destiny despite fair promise, which is common
among the thoughtful who have suffered early from poverty and oppression.
    »I won't be too gay on any account,« she would say to herself. »It would be
tempting Providence to hurl mother and me down, and afflict us again as He used
to do.«
    We now see her in
