"'Tis too good for us--we can't meet it!" said the elder woman, looking
round the apartment with misgiving as soon as they were left alone.

"I fear it is, too," said Elizabeth. "But we must be respectable."

"We must pay our way even before we must be respectable," replied her
mother. "Mr. Henchard is too high for us to make ourselves known to him,
I much fear; so we've only our own pockets to depend on."

"I know what I'll do," said Elizabeth-Jane after an interval of waiting,
during which their needs seemed quite forgotten under the press of
business below. And leaving the room, she descended the stairs and
penetrated to the bar.

If there was one good thing more than another which characterized this
single-hearted girl it was a willingness to sacrifice her personal
comfort and dignity to the common weal.

"As you seem busy here to-night, and mother's not well off, might I take
out part of our accommodation by helping?" she asked of the landlady.

The latter, who remained as fixed in the arm-chair as if she had been
melted into it when in a liquid state, and could not now be unstuck,
looked the girl up and down inquiringly, with her hands on the
chair-arms. Such arrangements as the one Elizabeth proposed were
not uncommon in country villages; but, though Casterbridge was
old-fashioned, the custom was well-nigh obsolete here. The mistress
of the house, however, was an easy woman to strangers, and she made no
objection. Thereupon Elizabeth, being instructed by nods and motions