had nothing finished and ready to say as yet, and not being able to
frame love phrases which end where they begin; passionate tales--


--Full of sound and fury
--Signifying nothing--


he said no word at all.

By making inquiries he found that the girl's name was Bathsheba
Everdene, and that the cow would go dry in about seven days. He
dreaded the eighth day.

At last the eighth day came. The cow had ceased to give milk for
that year, and Bathsheba Everdene came up the hill no more. Gabriel
had reached a pitch of existence he never could have anticipated
a short time before. He liked saying "Bathsheba" as a private
enjoyment instead of whistling; turned over his taste to black hair,
though he had sworn by brown ever since he was a boy, isolated
himself till the space he filled in the public eye was contemptibly
small. Love is a possible strength in an actual weakness. Marriage
transforms a distraction into a support, the power of which should
be, and happily often is, in direct proportion to the degree of
imbecility it supplants. Oak began now to see light in this
direction, and said to himself, "I'll make her my wife, or upon my
soul I shall be good for nothing!"

All this while he was perplexing himself about an errand on which he
might consistently visit the cottage of Bathsheba's aunt.