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audible than the note of the bell; a row of tall, varnished case–clocks from the interior of a clock–maker's shop joined in one after another just as the shutters were enclosing them, like a row of actors delivering their final speeches before the fall of the curtain; then chimes were heard stammering out the Sicilian Mariners' Hymn; so that chronologists of the advanced school were appreciably on their way to the next hour before the whole business of the old one was satisfactorily wound up.
    In an open space before the church walked a woman with her gown–sleeves rolled up so high that the edge of her underlinen was visible, and her skirt tucked up through her pocket hole. She carried a load under her arm from which she was pulling pieces of bread, and handing them to some other women who walked with her, which pieces they nibbled critically. The sight reminded Mrs. Henchard–Newson and her daughter that they had an appetite; and they inquired of the woman for the nearest baker's.
    "Ye may as well look for manna–food as good bread in Casterbridge just now," she said, after directing them. "They can blare their trumpets and thump their drums, and have their roaring dinners"—waving her hand towards a point further along the street, where the brass band could be seen standing in front of an illuminated building—"but we must needs be put–to for want of a wholesome crust. There's less good bread than good beer in Casterbridge now."
    "And less good beer than swipes," said a man with his hands in his pockets.
    "How does it happen there's no good bread?" asked Mrs. Henchard.
    "Oh, 'tis the corn–factor—he's the man that our millers and bakers all deal wi', and he has sold 'em growed wheat, which they didn't know was growed, so they SAY, till the dough ran all over the ovens like quicksilver; so that the loaves be as flat as toads, and like suet pudden inside. I've been a wife, and I've been a mother, and I never see such unprincipled bread in Casterbridge as this before.—But you must be a real stranger here not to know what's made all the poor volks' insides plim like blowed bladders this week?"
    "I am," said Elizabeth's mother shyly.
    Not wishing to be observed further till she knew more of her future in this place, she withdrew with her daughter from the speaker's side. Getting a couple of biscuits at the shop indicated as a temporary substitute for a meal, they next bent their steps instinctively to where the music was playing.

5.
    A few score yards brought them to the spot where the town band was now shaking the window–panes with the strains of "The Roast Beef of Old England."
    The building before whose doors they had pitched their music–stands was the chief hotel in Casterbridge—namely, the King's Arms. A spacious bow–window projected into the street over the main portico, and from the open sashes came the babble of voices, the jingle of glasses, and the drawing of corks. The blinds, moreover, being left unclosed, the whole interior of this room could be surveyed from the top of a flight of stone steps to the road–waggon office opposite, for which reason a knot of idlers had gathered there.
    "We might, perhaps, after all, make a few inquiries about—our relation Mr. Henchard," whispered Mrs. Newson who, since her entry into Casterbridge, had seemed strangely weak and agitated, "And this, I think, would be a good place for trying it—just to ask, you know, how he stands in the town—if he is here, as I think he must be. You, Elizabeth–Jane, had better be the one to do it. I'm too worn out to do anything—pull down your fall first."
    She sat down upon the lowest step, and Elizabeth–Jane obeyed her directions and stood among the idlers.
    "What's going on to–night?" asked the girl, after singling out an old man and standing by him long enough to acquire a neighbourly right of converse.
    "Well, ye must be a stranger sure," said the old man, without taking his eyes from the window. "Why,