Dear Diggory Venn,—­The question you put when you overtook me coming home from Pond-close gave me such a surprise that I am afraid I did not make you exactly understand what I meant.  Of course, if my aunt had not met me I could have explained all then at once, but as it was there was no chance.  I have been quite uneasy since, as you know I do not wish to pain you, yet I fear I shall be doing so now in contradicting what I seemed to say then.  I cannot, Diggory, marry you, or think of letting you call me your sweetheart.  I could not, indeed, Diggory.  I hope you will not much mind my saying this, and feel in a great pain.  It makes me very sad when I think it may, for I like you very much, and I always put you next to my cousin Clym in my mind.  There are so many reasons why we cannot be married that I can hardly name them all in a letter.  I did not in the least expect that you were going to speak on such a thing when you followed me, because I had never thought of you in the sense of a lover at all.  You must not becall me for laughing when you spoke; you mistook when you thought I laughed at you as a foolish man.  I laughed because the idea was so odd, and not at you at all.  The great reason with my own personal self for not letting you court me is, that I do not feel the things a woman ought to feel who consents to walk with you with the meaning of being your wife.  It is not as you think, that I have another in my mind, for I do not encourage anybody, and never have in my life.  Another reason is my aunt.  She would not, I know, agree to it, even if I wished to have you.  She likes you very well, but she will want me to look a little higher than a small dairy-farmer, and marry a professional man.  I hope you will not set your heart against me for writing plainly, but I felt you might try to see me again, and it is better that we should not meet.  I shall always think of you as a good man, and be anxious for your well-doing.  I send this by Jane Orchard’s little maid, —­And remain Diggory, your faithful friend,

   Thomasin Yeobright

   To Mr. Venn, Dairy-farmer

Since the arrival of that letter, on a certain autumn morning long ago, the reddleman and Thomasin had not met till today.  During the interval he had shifted his position even further from hers than it had originally been, by adopting the reddle trade; though he was really in very good circumstances still.  Indeed, seeing that his expenditure was only one-fourth of his income, he might have been called a prosperous man.

Rejected suitors take to roaming as naturally as unhived bees; and the business to which he had cynically devoted himself was in many ways congenial to Venn.  But his wanderings, by mere stress of old emotions, had frequently taken an Egdon direction, though he never intruded upon her who attracted him thither.  To be in Thomasin’s heath, and near her, yet unseen, was the one ewe-lamb of pleasure left to him.