His sister became abruptly still, and lapsed into a pondering
silence. Abraham talked on, rather for the pleasure of utterance
than for audition, so that his sister's abstraction was of no
account. He leant back against the hives, and with upturned face
made observations on the stars, whose cold pulses were beating
amid the black hollows above, in serene dissociation from these two
wisps of human life. He asked how far away those twinklers were,
and whether God was on the other side of them. But ever and anon
his childish prattle recurred to what impressed his imagination
even more deeply than the wonders of creation. If Tess were made
rich by marrying a gentleman, would she have money enough to buy a
spyglass so large that it would draw the stars as near to her as
Nettlecombe-Tout?
The renewed subject, which seemed to have impregnated the whole
family, filled Tess with impatience.
'Never mind that now!' she exclaimed.
'Did you say the stars were worlds, Tess?'
'Yes.'
'All like ours?'
'I don't know; but I think so. They sometimes seem to be like the
apples on our stubbard-tree. Most of them splendid and sound--a few
blighted.'
'Which do we live on--a splendid one or a blighted one?'
'A blighted one.'
''Tis very unlucky that we didn't pitch on a sound one, when there
were so many more of 'em!'
'Yes.'
'Is it like that REALLY, Tess?' said Abraham, turning to her much
impressed, on reconsideration of this rare information. 'How would
it have been if we had pitched on a sound one?'
'Well, father wouldn't have coughed and creeped about as he does,
and wouldn't have got too tipsy to go on this journey; and mother
wouldn't have been always washing, and never getting finished.'
'And you would have been a rich lady ready-made, and not have had to
be made rich by marrying a gentleman?'
'O Aby, don't--don't talk of that any more!'
Left to his reflections Abraham soon grew drowsy. Tess was not
skilful in the management of a horse, but she thought that she could
take upon herself the entire conduct of the load for the present and
allow Abraham to go to sleep if he wished to do so. She made him a
sort of nest in front of the hives, in such a manner that he could
not fall, and, taking the reins into her own hands, jogged on as
before.
Prince required but slight attention, lacking energy for superfluous
movements of any sort. With no longer a companion to distract her,
Tess fell more deeply into reverie than ever, her back leaning
against the hives. The mute procession past her shoulders of trees
and hedges became attached to fantastic scenes outside reality, and
the occasional heave of the wind became the sigh of some immense sad
