Hetty was quite certain her uncle wanted her to encourage Adam, and would be pleased for her to marry him.  For the last three years—­ever since he had superintended the building of the new barn—­Adam had always been made welcome at the Hall Farm, and for the last two years at least Hetty had been in the habit of hearing her uncle say, “Adam Bede may be working for a wage now, but he’ll be a master-man some day, as sure as I sit in this chair.  Master Burge is in the right on’t to want him to go partners and marry his daughter, if it’s true what they say.  The woman as marries him ’ull have a good take, be’t Lady Day or Michaelmas,” a remark which Mrs. Poyser always followed up with her cordial assent.

“Ah,” she would say, “it’s all very fine having a ready-made rich man, but may happen he’ll be a ready-made fool; and it’s no use filling your pocket full of money if you’ve got a hole in the corner.  It’ll do you no good to sit in a spring-cart o’ your own if you’ve got a soft to drive you; he’ll soon turn you over into the ditch.”

But Hetty had never given Adam any steady encouragement.  She liked to feel that this strong, keen-eyed man was in her power; but as to marrying Adam, that was a very different affair.

Hetty’s dreams were all of luxuries.  She thought if Adam had been rich, and could have given the things of her dreams—­large, beautiful earrings and Nottingham lace and a carpeted parlour—­she loved him well enough to marry him.

The last few weeks a new influence had come over Hetty; she had become aware that Mr. Arthur Donnithorne would take a good deal of trouble for the chance of seeing her.  And Dinah Morris was away, preaching and working in a manufacturing town.

III.—­Adam’s First Love

Adam Bede, like many other men, thought the signs of love for another were signs of love towards himself.  The time had come to him that summer, as he helped Hetty pick currants in the orchard of the Hall Farm, that a man can least forget in after-life—­the time when he believes that the first woman he has ever loved is, at least, beginning to love him in return.

He was not wrong in thinking that a change had come over Hetty; the anxieties and fears of a first passion with which she was trembling had become stronger than vanity, and while Adam drew near to her she was absorbed in thinking and wondering about Arthur Donnithorne’s possible return.

For the first time Hetty felt that there was something soothing to her in Adam’s timid yet manly tenderness; she wanted to be treated lovingly.  And Arthur was away from home; and, oh, it was very hard to bear the blank of absence.  She was not afraid that Adam would tease her with love-making and flattering speeches; he had always been so reserved to her.  She could enjoy without any fear the sense that this strong, brave man loved her and was near her.  It never entered into her mind that Adam was pitiable, too, that Adam, too, must suffer one day.