not unfrequent lapses into the cheapest conventional style of the average popular novelist. What can one make of a piece of writing like this, where the most flagrant puppets for the time-being usurp the parts of what he has taught us to feel as something like human characters?
(The Durbeyfield family is discussing a recent visit of Mr. D'Urberville.)
'Her mother hastened to explain, smiles breaking from every inch of her person. . . .
'"Mr. D'Urberville says you must be a good girl, if you are at all as you appear; he knows you must be worth your weight in gold. He is very much interested in 'ee—truth to tell.". . .
'"It is very good of him to think that," she murmured; "and if I was quite sure how it would be living there, I would go in a moment."
'"He is a mighty handsome man!"
'"I don't think so," said Tess coldly.
'"Well, there's your chance, whether or no; and I'm sure he wears a beautiful diamond ring."
'"Yes," said little Abraham brightly, from the window-bench; "and I seed it! And it did twinkle when he put his hand up to his mistarshers. Mother, why did our noble relation keep on putting his hand up to his mistarshers?"'
And so on, in the same vile and detestable fashion.
But his dramatic aberrations lead him into blunders more serious still. To say nothing of the improbability of four milkmaids, all sleeping in one room, and all hopelessly in love with one blameless prig of an amateur gentleman farmer, what a shocking want
