The Woodlanders Chapter 12

In which the day’s bright weather accompanies a walk taken by Grace Melbury and her father, during which an encounter with a fox and the hunt stirs reflections on social standing and the hopes her father places upon her future; he gently yet firmly impresses upon her the value of wealth and cultivated companionship, fostering in her an uneasy sense of burden and ambition. Meanwhile, village talk turns to the declining health of a local man, whose fate threatens to cast a shadow over the fortunes of one Giles Winterborne, weaving the quiet threads of circumstance more tightly about the lives involved.