The conversation became inclusive, and presently other footsteps were
heard crossing the room below.
"--Being a few private friends asked in to-night to keep up
club-walking at my own expense." The landlady had rapidly re-used
the formula she kept on hand for intruders before she recognized that
the newcomer was Tess.
Even to her mother's gaze the girl's young features looked sadly
out of place amid the alcoholic vapours which floated here as
no unsuitable medium for wrinkled middle-age; and hardly was a
reproachful flash from Tess's dark eyes needed to make her father
and mother rise from their seats, hastily finish their ale, and
descend the stairs behind her, Mrs Rolliver's caution following
their footsteps.
"No noise, please, if ye'll be so good, my dears; or I mid lose my
licends, and be summons'd, and I don't know what all! 'Night t'ye!"
They went home together, Tess holding one arm of her father, and Mrs
Durbeyfield the other. He had, in truth, drunk very little--not a
fourth of the quantity which a systematic tippler could carry to
church on a Sunday afternoon without a hitch in his eastings or
genuflections; but the weakness of Sir John's constitution made
mountains of his petty sins in this kind.
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