Gather ye rosebuds while ye may

She did not reach the house unobserved. just by the garden hedge she was met by a girl who knew her - one of the two or three with whom she had been intimate at school. After making a few inquiries as to how Tess came there, her friend, unheeding her tragic look, interrupted with-- ¡¡¡¡`But where's thy gentleman, Tess?' ¡¡¡¡Tess hastily explained that he had been called away on business, and, leaving her interlocutor, clambered over the garden-hedge, and thus made her way to the house. ¡¡¡¡As she went up the garden-path she heard her mother singing by the back door, coming in sight of which she perceived Mrs Durbeyfield on the doorstep in the act of wringing a sheet. Having performed this without observing Tess, she went indoors, and her daughter followed her. ¡¡¡¡The washing-tub stood in the same old place on the same old quarter-hogshead, and her mother, having thrown the sheet aside, was about to plunge her arms in anew. ¡¡¡¡`Why - Tess! - my chil' - I thought you was married! - married really and truly this time - we sent the cider--'