“Who was it took the news to the Hall Farm?” said Adam, his thoughts reverting to some one there; he wondered whether she had felt anything about it.

“It was Mr. Irwine, the clergyman, told me, and my aunt was grieved for your mother when she heard it, and wanted me to come; and so is my uncle, I’m sure, now he’s heard it, but he was gone out to Rosseter all yesterday.  They’ll look for you there as soon as you’ve got time to go, for there’s nobody round that hearth but what’s glad to see you.”

Dinah, with her sympathetic divination, knew quite well that Adam was longing to hear if Hetty had said anything about their trouble; she was too rigorously truthful for benevolent invention, but she had contrived to say something in which Hetty was tacitly included.  Love has a way of cheating itself consciously, like a child who plays at solitary hide-and-seek; it is pleased with assurances that it all the while disbelieves.  Adam liked what Dinah had said so much that his mind was directly full of the next visit he should pay to the Hall Farm, when Hetty would perhaps behave more kindly to him than she had ever done before.

“But you won’t be there yourself any longer?” he said to Dinah.

“No, I go back to Snowfield on Saturday, and I shall have to set out to Treddleston early, to be in time for the Oakbourne carrier.  So I must go back to the farm to-night, that I may have the last day with my aunt and her children.  But I can stay here all to-day, if your mother would like me; and her heart seemed inclined towards me last night.”

“Ah, then, she’s sure to want you to-day.  If mother takes to people at the beginning, she’s sure to get fond of ’em; but she’s a strange way of not liking young women.  Though, to be sure,” Adam went on, smiling, “her not liking other young women is no reason why she shouldn’t like you.”

Hitherto Gyp had been assisting at this conversation in motionless silence, seated on his haunches, and alternately looking up in his master’s face to watch its expression and observing Dinah’s movements about the kitchen.  The kind smile with which Adam uttered the last words was apparently decisive with Gyp of the light in which the stranger was to be regarded, and as she turned round after putting aside her sweeping-brush, he trotted towards her and put up his muzzle against her hand in a friendly way.

“You see Gyp bids you welcome,” said Adam, “and he’s very slow to welcome strangers.”

“Poor dog!” said Dinah, patting the rough grey coat, “I’ve a strange feeling about the dumb things as if they wanted to speak, and it was a trouble to ’em because they couldn’t.  I can’t help being sorry for the dogs always, though perhaps there’s no need.  But they may well have more in them than they know how to make us understand, for we can’t say half what we feel, with all our words.”

Seth came down now, and was pleased to find Adam talking with Dinah; he wanted Adam to know how much better she was than all other women.  But after a few words of greeting, Adam drew him into the workshop to consult about the coffin, and Dinah went on with her cleaning.