jigging up and down; the water dribbled from the matron's
elbows, and the song galloped on to the end of the verse, Mrs. Durbeyfield
regarding her daughter the while. Even now, when burdened with a young family,
Joan Durbeyfield was a passionate lover of tune. No ditty floated into Blackmoor
Vale from the outer world but Tess's mother caught up its notation in a week.
    There still faintly beamed from the woman's features something of the
freshness, and even the prettiness, of her youth; rendering it probable that the
personal charms which Tess could boast of were in main part her mother's gift,
and therefore unknightly, unhistorical.
    »I'll rock the cradle for 'ee, mother,« said the daughter gently. »Or I'll
take off my best frock and help you wring up? I thought you had finished long
ago.«
    Her mother bore Tess no ill-will for leaving the house-work to her
single-handed efforts for so long; indeed, Joan seldom upbraided her thereon at
any time, feeling but slightly the lack of Tess's assistance whilst her
instinctive plan for relieving herself of her labours lay in postponing them.
To-night, however, she was even in a blither mood than usual. There was a
dreaminess, a preoccupation, an exaltation, in the maternal look which the girl
could not understand.
    »Well, I'm glad you've come,« her mother said, as soon as the last note had
passed out of her. »I want to go and fetch your father; but what's more'n that,
I want to tell 'ee what have happened. Y'll be fess enough, my poppet, when
th'st know!« (Mrs. Durbeyfield habitually spoke the dialect; her daughter, who
had passed the Sixth Standard in the National School under a London-trained
mistress, spoke two languages; the dialect at home, more or less; ordinary
English abroad and to persons of quality.)
    »Since I've been away?« Tess asked.
    »Ay!«
    »Had it anything to do with father's making such a mommet of himself in thik
carriage this afternoon? Why did 'er? I felt inclined to sink into the ground
with shame!«
    »That wer all a part of the larry! We've been found to be the greatest
gentlefolk in the whole county - reaching all back long before Oliver Grumble's
time - to the days of the Pagan Turks - with monuments