The birds that the two girls had brought in were duly returned to the yard, and the process was repeated till all the pet cocks and hens had been submitted to the old woman—­Hamburghs, Bantams, Cochins, Brahmas, Dorkings, and such other sorts as were in fashion just then—­her perception of each visitor being seldom at fault as she received the bird upon her knees.

It reminded Tess of a Confirmation, in which Mrs d’Urberville was the bishop, the fowls the young people presented, and herself and the maid-servant the parson and curate of the parish bringing them up.  At the end of the ceremony Mrs d’Urberville abruptly asked Tess, wrinkling and twitching her face into undulations, “Can you whistle?”

“Whistle, Ma’am?”

“Yes, whistle tunes.”

Tess could whistle like most other country-girls, though the accomplishment was one which she did not care to profess in genteel company.  However, she blandly admitted that such was the fact.

“Then you will have to practise it every day.  I had a lad who did it very well, but he has left.  I want you to whistle to my bullfinches; as I cannot see them, I like to hear them, and we teach ’em airs that way.  Tell her where the cages are, Elizabeth.  You must begin to-morrow, or they will go back in their piping.  They have been neglected these several days.”

“Mr d’Urberville whistled to ’em this morning, ma’am,” said Elizabeth.

“He!  Pooh!”

The old lady’s face creased into furrows of repugnance, and she made no further reply.

Thus the reception of Tess by her fancied kinswoman terminated, and the birds were taken back to their quarters.  The girl’s surprise at Mrs d’Urberville’s manner was not great; for since seeing the size of the house she had expected no more.  But she was far from being aware that the old lady had never heard a word of the so-called kinship.  She gathered that no great affection flowed between the blind woman and her son.  But in that, too, she was mistaken.  Mrs d’Urberville was not the first mother compelled to love her offspring resentfully, and to be bitterly fond.

In spite of the unpleasant initiation of the day before, Tess inclined to the freedom and novelty of her new position in the morning when the sun shone, now that she was once installed there; and she was curious to test her powers in the unexpected direction asked of her, so as to ascertain her chance of retaining her post.  As soon as she was alone within the walled garden she sat herself down on a coop, and seriously screwed up her mouth for the long-neglected practice.  She found her former ability to have degenerated to the production of a hollow rush of wind through the lips, and no clear note at all.

She remained fruitlessly blowing and blowing, wondering how she could have so grown out of the art which had come by nature, till she became aware of a movement among the ivy-boughs which cloaked the garden-wall no less then the cottage.  Looking that way she beheld a form springing from the coping to the plot.  It was Alec d’Urberville, whom she had not set eyes on since he had conducted her the day before to the door of the gardener’s cottage where she had lodgings.