How Hetty’s heart beat as Arthur approached her!  He had hardly looked at her to-day:  now he must take her hand.  Would he press it?  Would he look at her?  She thought she would cry if he gave her no sign of feeling.  Now he was there—­he had taken her hand—­yes, he was pressing it.  Hetty turned pale as she looked up at him for an instant and met his eyes, before the dance carried him away.  That pale look came upon Arthur like the beginning of a dull pain, which clung to him, though he must dance and smile and joke all the same.  Hetty would look so, when he told her what he had to tell her; and he should never be able to bear it—­he should be a fool and give way again.  Hetty’s look did not really mean so much as he thought:  it was only the sign of a struggle between the desire for him to notice her and the dread lest she should betray the desire to others.  But Hetty’s face had a language that transcended her feelings.  There are faces which nature charges with a meaning and pathos not belonging to the single human soul that flutters beneath them, but speaking the joys and sorrows of foregone generations—­eyes that tell of deep love which doubtless has been and is somewhere, but not paired with these eyes—­perhaps paired with pale eyes that can say nothing; just as a national language may be instinct with poetry unfelt by the lips that use it.  That look of Hetty’s oppressed Arthur with a dread which yet had something of a terrible unconfessed delight in it, that she loved him too well.  There was a hard task before him, for at that moment he felt he would have given up three years of his youth for the happiness of abandoning himself without remorse to his passion for Hetty.

These were the incongruous thoughts in his mind as he led Mrs. Poyser, who was panting with fatigue, and secretly resolving that neither judge nor jury should force her to dance another dance, to take a quiet rest in the dining-room, where supper was laid out for the guests to come and take it as they chose.

“I’ve desired Hetty to remember as she’s got to dance wi’ you, sir,” said the good innocent woman; “for she’s so thoughtless, she’d be like enough to go an’ engage herself for ivery dance.  So I told her not to promise too many.”

“Thank you, Mrs. Poyser,” said Arthur, not without a twinge.  “Now, sit down in this comfortable chair, and here is Mills ready to give you what you would like best.”

He hurried away to seek another matronly partner, for due honour must be paid to the married women before he asked any of the young ones; and the country-dances, and the stamping, and the gracious nodding, and the waving of the hands, went on joyously.