Far from the Madding Crowd by Thomas Hardy
page 9 of 550 (01%)
page 9 of 550 (01%)
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"What, then?"
Gabriel, perhaps a little piqued by the comely traveller's indifference, glanced back to where he had witnessed her performance over the hedge, and said, "Vanity." CHAPTER II NIGHT -- THE FLOCK -- AN INTERIOR -- ANOTHER INTERIOR IT was nearly midnight on the eve of St. Thomas's, the shortest day in the year. A desolating wind wandered from the north over the hill whereon Oak had watched the yellow waggon and its occupant in the sunshine of a few days earlier. Norcombe Hill -- not far from lonely Toller-Down -- was one of the spots which suggest to a passer-by that he is in the presence of a shape approaching the indestructible as nearly as any to be found on earth. It was a featureless convexity of chalk and soil -- an ordinary specimen of those smoothly-outlined protuber- ances of the globe which may remain undisturbed on some great day of confusion, when far grander heights and dizzy granite precipices topple down. |
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