Tess of the d'Urbervilles Chapter 19

Days go by and Tess and Angel get to know each other better. Tess is worried about saying something stupid and ruining his opinion of her, and Angel is curious how someone as young as Tess has such a melancholy view of the world and life. Their love begins when he goes out of his way to help her out with her chores at milking time and she overhears him playing his harp in the garden and he catches her listening. The more time they spend together, the more their interest and affection grows. She respects his intellect and looks at him as almost god-like because he is so knowledgeable. His education makes her feel how lacking and unworthy she is. She tells him, "My life looks as if it had been wasted for want of chances! When I see what you know, what you have read, and seen, and thought, I feel what a nothing I am!" Chapter 19, pg. 124

Angel sees in Tess the questioning disillusion he felt toward the world himself earlier in his life. Tess considers telling Angel of her heritage as a way to impress him, but the dairyman warns her that Angel thinks lowly of noble families because they live on reputation only.