But Seth?  Would the lad be hurt?  Hardly; for he had seemed quite contented of late, and there was no selfish jealousy in him; he had never been jealous of his mother’s fondness for Adam.  But had he seen anything of what their mother talked about?  Adam longed to know this, for he thought he could trust Seth’s observation better than his mother’s.  He must talk to Seth before he went to see Dinah, and, with this intention in his mind, he walked back to the cottage and said to his mother, “Did Seth say anything to thee about when he was coming home?  Will he be back to dinner?”

“Aye, lad, he’ll be back for a wonder.  He isna gone to Treddles’on.  He’s gone somewhere else a-preachin’ and a-prayin’.”

“Hast any notion which way he’s gone?” said Adam.

“Nay, but he aften goes to th’ Common.  Thee know’st more o’s goings nor I do.”

Adam wanted to go and meet Seth, but he must content himself with walking about the near fields and getting sight of him as soon as possible.  That would not be for more than an hour to come, for Seth would scarcely be at home much before their dinner-time, which was twelve o’clock.  But Adam could not sit down to his reading again, and he sauntered along by the brook and stood leaning against the stiles, with eager intense eyes, which looked as if they saw something very vividly; but it was not the brook or the willows, not the fields or the sky.  Again and again his vision was interrupted by wonder at the strength of his own feeling, at the strength and sweetness of this new love—­almost like the wonder a man feels at the added power he finds in himself for an art which he had laid aside for a space.  How is it that the poets have said so many fine things about our first love, so few about our later love?  Are their first poems their best?  Or are not those the best which come from their fuller thought, their larger experience, their deeper-rooted affections?  The boy’s flutelike voice has its own spring charm; but the man should yield a richer deeper music.

At last, there was Seth, visible at the farthest stile, and Adam hastened to meet him.  Seth was surprised, and thought something unusual must have happened, but when Adam came up, his face said plainly enough that it was nothing alarming.

“Where hast been?” said Adam, when they were side by side.

“I’ve been to the Common,” said Seth.  “Dinah’s been speaking the Word to a little company of hearers at Brimstone’s, as they call him.  They’re folks as never go to church hardly—­them on the Common—­but they’ll go and hear Dinah a bit.  She’s been speaking with power this forenoon from the words, ’I came not to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance.’  And there was a little thing happened as was pretty to see.  The women mostly bring their children with ’em, but to-day there was one stout curly headed fellow about three or four year old, that I never saw there before.  He was as naughty as could be at the beginning while