How to decently get away from him--that was her difficulty now.

She sidled off inch by inch, the lantern in her hand, till she could see the redness of his coat no longer.
"Ah, Beauty; good-bye!" he said.
She made no reply, and, reaching a distance of twenty or thirty yards, turned about, and ran indoors.
Liddy had just retired to rest.

In ascending to her own chamber, Bathsheba opened the girl's door an inch or two, and, panting, said-- "Liddy, is any soldier staying in the village--sergeant somebody-- rather gentlemanly for a sergeant, and good looking--a red coat with blue facings ?" "No, miss ...

No, I say; but really it might be Sergeant Troy home on furlough, though I have not seen him.

He was here once in that way when the regiment was at Casterbridge." "Yes; that's the name.