Read "The Romantic Adventures of a Milkmaid" by Thomas Hardy online for free on Textopian. Full text with search, annotations, highlights, and AI-powered reading aids.
Seeing that Jim lived several miles from the widow, Margery was rather surprised, and even felt a slight sinking of the heart, when her new acquaintance appeared at her door so soon as the evening of the following Monday. She asked Margery to walk out with her, which the young woman readily did.
"I am come at once," said the widow breathlessly, as soon as they were in the lane, "for it is so exciting that I can't keep it. I must tell it to somebody, if only a bird, or a cat, or a garden snail."