“Why, what have we done to you.  Dinah, as you must go away from us?” said Mr. Poyser, still pausing over his tea-cup.  “It’s like breaking your word, welly, for your aunt never had no thought but you’d make this your home.”

“Nay, Uncle,” said Dinah, trying to be quite calm.  “When I first came, I said it was only for a time, as long as I could be of any comfort to my aunt.”

“Well, an’ who said you’d ever left off being a comfort to me?” said Mrs. Poyser.  “If you didna mean to stay wi’ me, you’d better never ha’ come.  Them as ha’ never had a cushion don’t miss it.”

“Nay, nay,” said Mr. Poyser, who objected to exaggerated views.  “Thee mustna say so; we should ha’ been ill off wi’out her, Lady day was a twelvemont’.  We mun be thankful for that, whether she stays or no.  But I canna think what she mun leave a good home for, to go back int’ a country where the land, most on’t, isna worth ten shillings an acre, rent and profits.”

“Why, that’s just the reason she wants to go, as fur as she can give a reason,” said Mrs. Poyser.  “She says this country’s too comfortable, an’ there’s too much t’ eat, an’ folks arena miserable enough.  And she’s going next week.  I canna turn her, say what I will.  It’s allays the way wi’ them meek-faced people; you may’s well pelt a bag o’ feathers as talk to ’em.  But I say it isna religion, to be so obstinate—­is it now, Adam?”

Adam saw that Dinah was more disturbed than he had ever seen her by any matter relating to herself, and, anxious to relieve her, if possible, he said, looking at her affectionately, “Nay, I can’t find fault with anything Dinah does.  I believe her thoughts are better than our guesses, let ’em be what they may.  I should ha’ been thankful for her to stay among us, but if she thinks well to go, I wouldn’t cross her, or make it hard to her by objecting.  We owe her something different to that.”

As it often happens, the words intended to relieve her were just too much for Dinah’s susceptible feelings at this moment.  The tears came into the grey eyes too fast to be hidden and she got up hurriedly, meaning it to be understood that she was going to put on her bonnet.

“Mother, what’s Dinah crying for?” said Totty.  “She isn’t a naughty dell.”

“Thee’st gone a bit too fur,” said Mr. Poyser.  “We’ve no right t’ interfere with her doing as she likes.  An’ thee’dst be as angry as could be wi’ me, if I said a word against anything she did.”

“Because you’d very like be finding fault wi’out reason,” said Mrs. Poyser.  “But there’s reason i’ what I say, else I shouldna say it.  It’s easy talking for them as can’t love her so well as her own aunt does.  An’ me got so used to her!  I shall feel as uneasy as a new sheared sheep when she’s gone from me.  An’ to think of her leaving a parish where she’s so looked on.  There’s Mr. Irwine makes as much of her as if she was a lady, for all her being a Methodist, an’ wi’ that maggot o’ preaching in her head—­God forgi’e me if I’m i’ the wrong to call it so.”