"I should be much obliged to you if you would keep the contents of this letter a secret for the present, dear friend.
We mean to surprise Weatherbury by coming there soon as husband and wife, though l blush to state it to one nearly a stranger. The sergeant grew up in Weatherbury. Thanking you again for your kindness, "I am, your sincere well-wisher, "FANNY ROBIN."
"Have you read it, Mr. Boldwood?" said Gabriel; "if not, you had better do so. I know you are interested in Fanny Robin."
Boldwood read the letter and looked grieved.
"Fanny -- poor Fanny! the end she is so confident of has not yet come, she should remember -- and may never come. I see she gives no address."
"What sort of a man is this Sergeant Troy?" said Gabriel.
"H'm -- I'm afraid not one to build much hope upon in such a case as this." the farmer murmured, "though he's a clever fellow, and up to everything. A slight romance attaches to him, too. His mother was a French governess, and it seems that a secret attachment existed between her and the late Lord Severn. She was married to a poor medical man, and soon after an infant was horn; and while money was forthcoming all went on well. Unfortunately for her boy, his best friends died; and he got then a situation as second clerk at a lawyer's in Casterbridge. He stayed there for some time, and might have worked himself into a dignified position of some sort had he not indulged in the wild freak of enlisting. I have much doubt if ever little Fanny will surprise us in the way she mentions -- very much doubt A silly girl! -- silly girl!"
The door was hurriedly burst open again, and in came running Cainy Ball out of breath, his mouth red and open, like the bell of a penny trumpet, from which he coughed with noisy vigour and great distension of face.
"Now, Cain Ball." said Oak, sternly, "why will you run so fast and lose your breath so? I'm always telling you of it."
"Oh -- I -- a puff of mee breath -- went -- the -- wrong way, please, Mister Oak, and made me cough -- hok -hok!"
"Well -- what have you come for?"
"I've run to tell ye." said the junior shepherd, supporting his exhausted youthful frame against the doorpost," that you must come directly'. Two more ewes have twinned -- that's what's the matter, Shepherd Oak."