"Will I!" said Troy. "Why, of course I will. How blooming you are to-day!" Troy flung down his cane and put his foot on the ladder to ascend.
"But you must have on the veil and gloves, or you'll be stung fearfully!"
"Ah, yes. I must put on the veil and gloves. Will you kindly show me how to fix them properly?"
"And you must have the broad-brimmed hat, too, for your cap has no brim to keep the veil off, and they'd reach your face."
"The broad-brimmed hat, too, by all means."
So a whimsical fate ordered that her hat should be taken off -- veil and all attached -- and placed upon his head, Troy tossing his own into a gooseberry bush.
Then the veil had to be tied at its lower edge round his collar and the gloves put on him.
He looked such an extraordinary object in this guise that, flurried as she was, she could not avoid laughing outright. It was the removal of yet another stake from the palisade of cold manners which had kept him off Bathsheba looked on from the ground whilst he was busy sweeping and shaking the bees from the tree, holding up the hive with the other hand for them to fall into. She made use of an unobserved minute whilst his attention was absorbed in the operation to arrange her plumes a little. He came down holding the hive at arm's length, behind which trailed a cloud of bees.
"Upon my life." said Troy, through the veil," holding up this hive makes one's arm ache worse than a week of sword-exercise." When the manoeuvre was complete he approached her. "Would you be good enough to untie me and let me out? I am nearly stifled inside this silk cage."
To hide her embarrassment during the unwonted process of untying the string about his neck, she said: -"I have never seen that you spoke of."
"What?"
"The sword-exercise."
"Ah! would you like to?" said Troy.
Bathsheba hesitated. She had heard wondrous reports from time to time by dwellers in Weatherbury, who had by chance sojourned awhile in Casterbridge, near the barracks, of this strange and glorious performance, *tlie sword-exercise. Men and boys who had peeped through chinks or over walls into the barrackyard returned with accounts of its being the most flashing affair conceivable; accoutrements and weapons glistening like stars-here,there,around-yet all by rule and compass. So she said mildly what she felt strongly.
"Yes; I should like to see it very much."
"And so you shall; you shall see me go through it."
"No! How?"