"Don't 'ee mind him, there's a dear," said Marian. "I've worked here
before. Now you go and lie down there, and Izz and I will make up
your number."
"I don't like to let you do that. I'm taller than you, too."
However, she was so overcome that she consented to lie down awhile,
and reclined on a heap of pull-tails--the refuse after the straight
straw had been drawn--thrown up at the further side of the barn. Her
succumbing had been as largely owning to agitation at the re-opening
the subject of her separation from her husband as to the hard work.
She lay in a state of percipience without volition, and the rustle of
the straw and the cutting of the ears by the others had the weight of
bodily touches.
She could hear from her corner, in addition to these noises, the
murmur of their voices. She felt certain that they were continuing
the subject already broached, but their voices were so low that she
could not catch the words. At last Tess grew more and more anxious
to know what they were saying, and, persuading herself that she felt
better, she got up and resumed work.
Then Izz Huett broke down. She had walked more than a dozen miles
the previous evening, had gone to bed at midnight, and had risen
again at five o'clock.
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