chimney stood the settle, which is the necessary supplement to a fire so
open that nothing less than a strong breeze will carry up the smoke. It
is, to the hearths of old-fashioned cavernous fireplaces, what the east
belt of trees is to the exposed country estate, or the north wall to
the garden. Outside the settle candles gutter, locks of hair wave, young
women shiver, and old men sneeze. Inside is Paradise. Not a symptom of a
draught disturbs the air; the sitters' backs are as warm as their faces,
and songs and old tales are drawn from the occupants by the comfortable
heat, like fruit from melon plants in a frame.

It was, however, not with those who sat in the settle that Eustacia was
concerned. A face showed itself with marked distinctness against the
dark-tanned wood of the upper part. The owner, who was leaning against
the settle's outer end, was Clement Yeobright, or Clym, as he was called
here; she knew it could be nobody else. The spectacle constituted an
area of two feet in Rembrandt's intensest manner. A strange power in the
lounger's appearance lay in the fact that, though his whole figure was
visible, the observer's eye was only aware of his face.

To one of middle age the countenance was that of a young man, though a
youth might hardly have seen any necessity for the term of immaturity.
But it was really one of those faces which convey less the idea of
so many years as its age than of so much experience as its store. The
number of their years may have adequately summed up Jared, Mahalaleel,
and the rest of the antediluvians, but the age of a modern man is to be
measured by the intensity of his history.

The face was well shaped, even excellently. But the mind within
was beginning to use it as a mere waste tablet whereon to trace its
idiosyncrasies as they developed themselves. The beauty here visible