Life’s Little Ironies a set of tales with some colloquial sketches entitled A FEW CRUSTED CHARACTERS by Thomas Hardy with a map of wessex MACMILLAN AND CO., LIMITED ST. MARTIN’S STREET, LONDON 1920 COPYRIGHT _First Collected Edition_ 1894. _New Edition and reprints_ 1896-1900 _First published by Macmillan & Co._, _Crown_ 8_ov_, 1903. _Reprinted_ 1910, 1915 _Pockets Edition_ 1907, 1910, 1913, 1916, 1919 (_twice_), 1920 _Wessex Edition_ 1912 Contents The Son’s Veto For Conscience’ Sake A Tragedy of Two Ambitions On the Western Circuit To Please his Wife The Melancholy Hussar of the German Legion The Fidler of the Reels A Tradition of Eighteen Hundred and Four A Few Crusted Characters THE SON’S VETO CHAPTER I To the eyes of a man viewing it from behind, the nut-brown hair was a wonder and a mystery. Under the black beaver hat, surmounted by its tuft of black feathers, the long locks, braided and twisted and coiled like the rushes of a basket, composed a rare, if somewhat barbaric, example of ingenious art. One could understand such weavings and coilings being wrought to last intact for a year, or even a calendar month; but that they should be all demolished regularly at bedtime, after a single day of permanence, seemed a reckless waste of successful fabrication. And she had done it all herself, poor thing. She had no maid, and it was almost the only accomplishment she could boast of. Hence the unstinted pains. She was a young invalid lady—not so very much of an invalid—sitting in a wheeled chair, which had been pulled up in the front part of a green enclosure, close to a bandstand, where a concert was going on, during a warm June afternoon. It had place in one of the minor parks or private gardens that are to be found in the suburbs of London, and was the effort of a local association to raise money for some charity. There are worlds within worlds in the great city, and though nobody outside the immediate district had ever heard of the charity, or the band, or the garden, the enclosure was filled with an interested audience sufficiently informed on all these. As the strains proceeded many of the listeners observed the chaired lady, whose back hair, by reason of her prominent position, so challenged inspection. Her face was not easily discernible, but the aforesaid cunning tress-weavings, the white ear and poll, and the curve of a cheek which was neither flaccid nor sallow, were signals that led to the expectation of good beauty in front. Such expectations are not infrequently disappointed as soon as the disclosure comes; and in the present case, when the lady, by a turn of the head, at length revealed herself, she was not so handsome as the people behind her had supposed, and even hoped—they did not know why.