Read it through once

It was in the economy of this _régime_ that Tess Durbeyfield had undertaken to fill a place. Her first day’s experiences were fairly typical of those which followed through many succeeding days. A familiarity with Alec d’Urberville’s presence—which that young man carefully cultivated in her by playful dialogue, and by jestingly calling her his cousin when they were alone—removed much of her original shyness of him, without, however, implanting any feeling which could engender shyness of a new and tenderer kind. But she was more pliable under his hands than a mere companionship would have made her, owing to her unavoidable dependence upon his mother, and, through that lady’s comparative helplessness, upon him.