privileges which maidens are allowed to claim from their lovers. He
should curtail no ceremonious observance because she was the daughter of
a poor country parson who would come to him without a shilling, whereas
he stood high in the world's books. He had asked her to give him all
that she had, and that all she was ready to give, without stint. But the
gift must be valued before it could be given or received. He also was to
give her as much, and she would accept it as being beyond all price. But
she would not allow that that which was offered to her was in any degree
the more precious because of his outward worldly standing.

She would not pretend to herself that she thought he would come to her
that afternoon, and therefore she busied herself in the kitchen and
about the house, giving directions to her two maids as though the day
would pass as all other days did pass in that household. They usually
dined at four, and she rarely, in these summer months, went far from the
house before that hour. At four precisely she sat down with her father,
and then said that she was going up as far as Helpholme after dinner.
Helpholme was a solitary farmhouse in another parish, on the border of
the moor, and Mr. Woolsworthy asked her whether he should accompany her.

'Do, papa,' she said, 'if you are not too tired.' And yet she had
thought how probable it might be that she should meet John Broughton on
her walk. And so it was arranged; but, just as dinner was over, Mr.
Woolsworthy remembered himself.

'Gracious me,' he said, 'how my memory is going! Gribbles, from
Ivybridge, and old John Poulter, from Bovey, are coming to meet here by
appointment. You can't put Helpholme off till tomorrow?'

Patience, however, never put off anything, and therefore at six o'clock,