Dinah tried to escape from Lisbeth’s closest looks and questions by finding little tasks of housework that kept her moving about, and as soon as Seth came home in the evening she put on her bonnet to go.  It touched Dinah keenly to say the last good-bye, and still more to look round on her way across the fields and see the old woman still standing at the door, gazing after her till she must have been the faintest speck in the dim aged eyes.  “The God of love and peace be with them,” Dinah prayed, as she looked back from the last stile.  “Make them glad according to the days wherein thou hast afflicted them, and the years wherein they have seen evil.  It is thy will that I should part from them; let me have no will but thine.”

Lisbeth turned into the house at last and sat down in the workshop near Seth, who was busying himself there with fitting some bits of turned wood he had brought from the village into a small work-box, which he meant to give to Dinah before she went away.

“Thee’t see her again o’ Sunday afore she goes,” were her first words.  “If thee wast good for anything, thee’dst make her come in again o’ Sunday night wi’ thee, and see me once more.”

“Nay, Mother,” said Seth.  “Dinah ’ud be sure to come again if she saw right to come.  I should have no need to persuade her.  She only thinks it ’ud be troubling thee for nought, just to come in to say good-bye over again.”

“She’d ne’er go away, I know, if Adam ‘ud be fond on her an’ marry her, but everything’s so contrairy,” said Lisbeth, with a burst of vexation.

Seth paused a moment and looked up, with a slight blush, at his mother’s face.  “What!  Has she said anything o’ that sort to thee, Mother?” he said, in a lower tone.

“Said?  Nay, she’ll say nothin’.  It’s on’y the men as have to wait till folks say things afore they find ’em out.”

“Well, but what makes thee think so, Mother?  What’s put it into thy head?”

“It’s no matter what’s put it into my head.  My head’s none so hollow as it must get in, an’ nought to put it there.  I know she’s fond on him, as I know th’ wind’s comin’ in at the door, an’ that’s anoof.  An’ he might be willin’ to marry her if he know’d she’s fond on him, but he’ll ne’er think on’t if somebody doesna put it into’s head.”

His mother’s suggestion about Dinah’s feeling towards Adam was not quite a new thought to Seth, but her last words alarmed him, lest she should herself undertake to open Adam’s eyes.  He was not sure about Dinah’s feeling, and he thought he was sure about Adam’s.

“Nay, Mother, nay,” he said, earnestly, “thee mustna think o’ speaking o’ such things to Adam.  Thee’st no right to say what Dinah’s feelings are if she hasna told thee, and it ’ud do nothing but mischief to say such things to Adam.  He feels very grateful and affectionate toward Dinah, but he’s no thoughts towards her that ’ud incline him to make her his wife, and I don’t believe Dinah ’ud marry him either.  I don’t think she’ll marry at all.”