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MAIDEN NO MORE
PHASE THE SECOND
MAIDEN NO MORE
XII
THE basket was heavy and the bundle was large, but she lugged them along like a person who did not find any especial burden in material things. Occasionally she stopped to rest in a mechanical way by some gate or post; and then, giving the baggage another hitch upon her full round arm, went steadily on again.
It was a Sunday morning in late October, about four months after Tess Durbeyfield’s arrival at Trantridge. The time was not long past daybreak, and the yellow luminosity upon the horizon behind her back lighted the ridge towards which her face was set—the barrier of the vale wherein she had of late been a stranger—-
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