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leaving a slide open. I opened the door, and there you were like dead. I threw the milk over you, as there was no water, forgetting it was warm, and no use.”
    â€œI wonder if I should have died?” Gabriel said, in a low voice, which was rather meant to travel back to himself than to her.
    â€œOh no!” the girl replied. She seemed to prefer a less tragic probability; to have saved a man from death involved talk that should harmonise with the dignity of such a deed — and she shunned it.
    â€œI believe you saved my life, Miss — I don’t know your name. I know your aunt’s, but not yours.”
    â€œI would just as soon not tell it — rather not. There is no reason either why I should, as you probably will never have much to do with me.”
    â€œStill, I should like to know.”
    â€œYou can inquire at my aunt’s — she will tell you.”
    â€œMy name is Gabriel Oak.”
    â€œAnd mine isn’t. You seem fond of yours in speaking it so decisively, Gabriel Oak.”
    â€œYou see, it is the only one I shall ever have, and I must make the most of it.”
    â€œI always think mine sounds odd and disagreeable.”
    â€œI should think you might soon get a new one — as a wife, I mean.”
    â€œMercy! — how many opinions you keep about you concerning other people, Gabriel Oak.”
    â€œWell, Miss — excuse the words — I thought you would like them. But I can’t match you, I know, in mapping out my mind upon my tongue. I never was very clever in my inside. But I thank you. Come, give me your hand.”
    She hesitated, somewhat disconcerted at Oak’s old-fashioned earnest conclusion to a dialogue lightly carried on. “Very well,” she said, and gave him her hand, compressing her lips to a demure impassivity. He held it but an instant, and in his fear of being too demonstrative, swerved to the opposite extreme, touching her fingers with the lightness of a small-hearted person.
    â€œI am sorry,” he said the instant after.
    â€œWhat for?”
    â€œLetting your hand go so quick.”
    â€œYou may have it again if you like; there it is.”
    She gave him her hand again.
    Oak held it longer this time — indeed, curiously long. “How soft it is — being winter time, too — not chapped or rough or anything!” he said.
    â€œThere — that’s long enough,” said she, though without pulling it away. “But I suppose you are thinking you would like to kiss it? You may if you want to.”
    â€œI wasn’t thinking of any such thing,” said Gabriel, simply; “but I will — ”
    â€œThat you won’t!” She snatched back her hand.
    Gabriel felt himself guilty of another want of tact.
    â€œNow find out my name,” she said, teasingly; and withdrew.

CHAPTER IV
    GABRIEL’S RESOLVE — THE VISIT — THE MISTAKE
    The only superiority in women that is tolerable to the rival sex is, as a rule, that of the unconscious kind; but a superiority which recognizes itself may sometimes please by suggesting possibilities of capture to the subordinated man.
    This well-favoured and comely girl soon made appreciable inroads upon the emotional constitution of young Farmer Oak. His fantasies were no longer of a sudden encounter in the night, of purely bodily explorations, and of the satisfaction of physical lust alone; they were coupled now with an urgent desire for the loving presence of this young woman whose charms had utterly entranced him, and whose teasing looks and smiles made him long to know her better, and to have her always beside him.
    Love, being an extremely exacting usurer (a sense of exorbitant profit, spiritually, by an exchange of hearts, being at the bottom of pure passions, as that of exorbitant profit, bodily or materially, is at the bottom of those of lower atmosphere), every morning Oak’s feelings were as sensitive as the