dust. The trees had put on as of yore their aspect of dingy green, and
where the Henchard family of three had once walked along, two persons
not unconnected with the family walked now.

The scene in its broad aspect had so much of its previous character,
even to the voices and rattle from the neighbouring village down,
that it might for that matter have been the afternoon following the
previously recorded episode. Change was only to be observed in details;
but here it was obvious that a long procession of years had passed by.
One of the two who walked the road was she who had figured as the young
wife of Henchard on the previous occasion; now her face had lost much of
its rotundity; her skin had undergone a textural change; and though her
hair had not lost colour it was considerably thinner than heretofore.
She was dressed in the mourning clothes of a widow. Her companion,
also in black, appeared as a well-formed young woman about eighteen,
completely possessed of that ephemeral precious essence youth, which is
itself beauty, irrespective of complexion or contour.

A glance was sufficient to inform the eye that this was Susan Henchard's
grown-up daughter. While life's middle summer had set its hardening
mark on the mother's face, her former spring-like specialities were
transferred so dexterously by Time to the second figure, her child,
that the absence of certain facts within her mother's knowledge from the
girl's mind would have seemed for the moment, to one reflecting on those
facts, to be a curious imperfection in Nature's powers of continuity.

They walked with joined hands, and it could be perceived that this was
the act of simple affection. The daughter carried in her outer hand
a withy basket of old-fashioned make; the mother a blue bundle, which
contrasted oddly with her black stuff gown.