Jude the Obscure (Oxford World's Classics)

part of the country, and out here to see you to-night.’
‘Come in,’ said Phillotson. ‘And your cousin, too.’
They entered the parlour of the schoolhouse, where there was a
At Christminster
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lamp with a paper shade, which threw the light down on three or
four books. Phillotson took it o
ff; so that they could see each other
better, and the rays fell on the nervous little face and vivacious dark
eyes and hair of Sue, on the earnest features of her cousin, and on
the schoolmaster’s own maturer face and 
figure, showing him to be a
spare and thoughtful personage of 
five-and-forty, with a thin-lipped,
somewhat re
fined mouth, a slightly stooping habit, and a black
frock coat, which from continued frictions shone a little at the
shoulder-blades, the middle of the back, and the elbows.
The old friendship was imperceptibly renewed, the schoolmaster
speaking of his experiences, and the cousins of theirs. He told them
that he still thought of the church sometimes, and that though he
could not enter it as he had intended to do in former years he might
enter it as a licentiate. Meanwhile, he said he was comfortable in his
present position, though he was in want of a pupil-teacher.
They did not stay to supper, Sue having to be indoors before it
grew late, and the road was retraced to Christminster. Though they
had talked of nothing more than general subjects Jude was surprised
to 
find what a revelation of woman his cousin was to him. She was so
vibrant that everything she did seemed to have its source in feeling.
An exciting thought would make her walk ahead so fast that he could
hardly keep up with her; and her sensitiveness on some points was
such that it might have been misread as vanity. It was with heart-
sickness he perceived that, while her sentiments towards him were
those of the frankest friendliness only, he loved her more than before
becoming acquainted with her; and the gloom of the walk home lay
not in the night overhead, but in the thought of her departure.
‘Why must you leave Christminster?’ he said regretfully. ‘How can
you do otherwise than cling to a city in whose history such men as
Newman, Pusey, Ward, Keble, loom so large!’
‘Yes––they do. Though how large do they loom in the history of
the world? . . . What a funny reason for caring to stay! I should never
have thought of it!’ she laughed.
‘Well––I must go,’ she continued. ‘Miss Fontover, one of the