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‘I was on’y feeling all the strangeness o’t—that she is to be his wife, and nobody else. I don’t say nay to it, nor either of us, because we did not think of it—only loved him. Still, nobody else is to marry him in the world—no fine lady, nobody in jewels and gold, in silks and satins; but she who do live like we.’

‘Are you sure you don’t dislike me for it?’ said Tess in a low voice.

They hung about her in their scant white nightgowns, before replying, as if they considered their answer might lie in her look.

‘I don’t know—I don’t know,’ murmured Retty Priddle. ‘I want to hate ’ee; but I cannot!’

‘That’s how I feel,’ echoed Izz and Marian. ‘I can’t hate her. Somehow she hinders me!’

‘He ought to marry one of you,’ murmured Tess.

‘Why?’

‘You are all better than I.’

‘We better than you?’ said the girls in a low, slow whisper. ‘No, no, dear Tess!’

‘You are!’ she contradicted impetuously. And suddenly tearing away from their clinging arms