“Why, it took us the best part o’ two days’ walking.  But it’s nothing of a day’s journey for anybody as has got a first-rate nag.  The captain ’ud get there in nine or ten hours, I’ll be bound, he’s such a rider.  And I shouldn’t wonder if he’s back again to-morrow; he’s too active to rest long in that lonely place, all by himself, for there’s nothing but a bit of a inn i’ that part where he’s gone to fish.  I wish he’d got th’ estate in his hands; that ’ud be the right thing for him, for it ’ud give him plenty to do, and he’d do’t well too, for all he’s so young; he’s got better notions o’ things than many a man twice his age.  He spoke very handsome to me th’ other day about lending me money to set up i’ business; and if things came round that way, I’d rather be beholding to him nor to any man i’ the world.”

Poor Adam was led on to speak about Arthur because he thought Hetty would be pleased to know that the young squire was so ready to befriend him; the fact entered into his future prospects, which he would like to seem promising in her eyes.  And it was true that Hetty listened with an interest which brought a new light into her eyes and a half-smile upon her lips.

“How pretty the roses are now!” Adam continued, pausing to look at them.  “See!  I stole the prettiest, but I didna mean to keep it myself.  I think these as are all pink, and have got a finer sort o’ green leaves, are prettier than the striped uns, don’t you?”

He set down the basket and took the rose from his button-hole.

“It smells very sweet,” he said; “those striped uns have no smell.  Stick it in your frock, and then you can put it in water after.  It ’ud be a pity to let it fade.”

Hetty took the rose, smiling as she did so at the pleasant thought that Arthur could so soon get back if he liked.  There was a flash of hope and happiness in her mind, and with a sudden impulse of gaiety she did what she had very often done before—­stuck the rose in her hair a little above the left ear.  The tender admiration in Adam’s face was slightly shadowed by reluctant disapproval.  Hetty’s love of finery was just the thing that would most provoke his mother, and he himself disliked it as much as it was possible for him to dislike anything that belonged to her.

“Ah,” he said, “that’s like the ladies in the pictures at the Chase; they’ve mostly got flowers or feathers or gold things i’ their hair, but somehow I don’t like to see ’em they allays put me i’ mind o’ the painted women outside the shows at Treddles’on Fair.  What can a woman have to set her off better than her own hair, when it curls so, like yours?  If a woman’s young and pretty, I think you can see her good looks all the better for her being plain dressed.  Why, Dinah Morris looks very nice, for all she wears such a plain cap and gown.  It seems to me as a woman’s face doesna want flowers; it’s almost like a flower itself.  I’m sure yours is.”

“Oh, very well,” said Hetty, with a little playful pout, taking the rose out of her hair.  “I’ll put one o’ Dinah’s caps on when we go in, and you’ll see if I look better in it.  She left one behind, so I can take the pattern.”