John Durbeyfield had more conceit than energy or health, and this supposition was pleasant to him.

“Well, perhaps that’s what young Mr d’Urberville means,” he admitted; “and sure enough he mid have serious thoughts about improving his blood by linking on to the old line.  Tess, the little rogue!  And have she really paid ’em a visit to such an end as this?”

Meanwhile Tess was walking thoughtfully among the gooseberry-bushes in the garden, and over Prince’s grave.  When she came in her mother pursued her advantage.

“Well, what be you going to do?” she asked.

“I wish I had seen Mrs d’Urberville,” said Tess.

“I think you mid as well settle it.  Then you’ll see her soon enough.”

Her father coughed in his chair.

“I don’t know what to say!” answered the girl restlessly.  “It is for you to decide.  I killed the old horse, and I suppose I ought to do something to get ye a new one.  But—­but—­I don’t quite like Mr d’Urberville being there!”

The children, who had made use of this idea of Tess being taken up by their wealthy kinsfolk (which they imagined the other family to be) as a species of dolorifuge after the death of the horse, began to cry at Tess’s reluctance, and teased and reproached her for hesitating.

“Tess won’t go-o-o and be made a la-a-dy of!—­no, she says she wo-o-on’t!” they wailed, with square mouths.  “And we shan’t have a nice new horse, and lots o’ golden money to buy fairlings!  And Tess won’t look pretty in her best cloze no mo-o-ore!”

Her mother chimed in to the same tune:  a certain way she had of making her labours in the house seem heavier than they were by prolonging them indefinitely, also weighed in the argument.  Her father alone preserved an attitude of neutrality.

“I will go,” said Tess at last.

Her mother could not repress her consciousness of the nuptial vision conjured up by the girl’s consent.

“That’s right!  For such a pretty maid as ’tis, this is a fine chance!”

Tess smiled crossly.

“I hope it is a chance for earning money.  It is no other kind of chance.  You had better say nothing of that silly sort about parish.”

Mrs Durbeyfield did not promise.  She was not quite sure that she did not feel proud enough, after the visitor’s remarks, to say a good deal.

Thus it was arranged; and the young girl wrote, agreeing to be ready to set out on any day on which she might be required.  She was duly informed that Mrs d’Urberville was glad of her decision, and that a spring-cart should be sent to meet her and her luggage at the top of the Vale on the day after the morrow, when she must hold herself prepared to start.  Mrs d’Urberville’s handwriting seemed rather masculine.

“A cart?” murmured Joan Durbeyfield doubtingly.  “It might have been a carriage for her own kin!”