The Woodlanders by Thomas Hardy — Read

Explore "The Woodlanders" by Thomas Hardy on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.

She walked up the soft grassy ride, screened on either hand by nut-bushes, just now heavy with clusters of twos and threes and fours. A little way on, the track she pursued was crossed by a similar one at right angles. Here Grace stopped; some few yards up the transverse ride the buxom Suke Damson was visible--her gown tucked up high through her pocket-hole, and no bonnet on her head-in the act of pulling down boughs from which she was gathering and eating nuts with great rapidity, her lover Tim Tangs standing near her engaged in the same pleasant meal.

Crack, crack went Suke's jaws every second or two. By an automatic chain of thought Grace's mind reverted to the toothdrawing scene described by her husband; and for the first time she wondered if that narrative were really true, Susan's jaws being so obviously sound and strong. Grace turned up towards the nutgatherers, and conquered her reluctance to speak to the girl who was a little in advance of Tim. "Good-evening, Susan," she said.

Reading navigation