“Aye, aye,” said Mr. Poyser, “we must have a better husband for her nor that, and there’s better at hand.  Come, my wench, give over crying and get to bed.  I’ll do better for you nor letting you go for a lady’s maid.  Let’s hear no more on’t.”

When Hetty was gone upstairs he said, “I canna make it out as she should want to go away, for I thought she’d got a mind t’ Adam Bede.  She’s looked like it o’ late.”

“Eh, there’s no knowing what she’s got a liking to, for things take no more hold on her than if she was a dried pea.  I believe that gell, Molly—­as is aggravatin’ enough, for the matter o’ that—­but I believe she’d care more about leaving us and the children, for all she’s been here but a year come Michaelmas, nor Hetty would.  But she’s got this notion o’ being a lady’s maid wi’ going among them servants—­we might ha’ known what it ’ud lead to when we let her go to learn the fine work.  But I’ll put a stop to it pretty quick.”

“Thee’dst be sorry to part wi’ her, if it wasn’t for her good,” said Mr. Poyser.  “She’s useful to thee i’ the work.”

“Sorry?  Yes, I’m fonder on her nor she deserves—­a little hard-hearted hussy, wanting to leave us i’ that way.  I can’t ha’ had her about me these seven year, I reckon, and done for her, and taught her everything wi’out caring about her.  An’ here I’m having linen spun, an’ thinking all the while it’ll make sheeting and table-clothing for her when she’s married, an’ she’ll live i’ the parish wi’ us, and never go out of our sights—­like a fool as I am for thinking aught about her, as is no better nor a cherry wi’ a hard stone inside it.”

“Nay, nay, thee mustna make much of a trifle,” said Mr. Poyser, soothingly.  “She’s fond on us, I’ll be bound; but she’s young, an’ gets things in her head as she can’t rightly give account on.  Them young fillies ’ull run away often wi’-ou; knowing why.”

Her uncle’s answers, however, had had another effect on Hetty besides that of disappointing her and making her cry.  She knew quite well whom he had in his mind in his allusions to marriage, and to a sober, solid husband; and when she was in her bedroom again, the possibility of her marrying Adam presented itself to her in a new light.  In a mind where no strong sympathies are at work, where there is no supreme sense of right to which the agitated nature can cling and steady itself to quiet endurance, one of the first results of sorrow is a desperate vague clutching after any deed that will change the actual condition.  Poor Hetty’s vision of consequences, at no time more than a narrow fantastic calculation of her own probable pleasures and pains, was now quite shut out by reckless irritation under present suffering, and she was ready for one of those convulsive, motiveless actions by which wretched men and women leap from a temporary sorrow into a lifelong misery.

Why should she not marry Adam?  She did not care what she did, so that it made some change in her life.  She felt confident that he would still want to marry her, and any further thought about Adam’s happiness in the matter had never yet visited her.