Night had always been the time at which he saw Bathsheba most vividly, and through the slow hours of shadow he tenderly regarded her image now.

It is rarely that the pleasures of the imagination will compensate for the pain of sleeplessness, but they possibly did with Oak to-night, for the delight of merely seeing her effaced for the time his perception of the great difference between seeing and possessing.
He also thought of plans for fetching his few utensils and books from Norcombe.

_The Young Man's Best Companion_, _The Farrier's Sure Guide_, _The Veterinary Surgeon_, _Paradise Lost_, _The Pilgrim's Progress_, _Robinson Crusoe_, Ash's _Dictionary_, and Walkingame's _Arithmetic_, constituted his library; and though a limited series, it was one from which he had acquired more sound information by diligent perusal than many a man of opportunities has done from a furlong of laden shelves..