Mr. Poyser listened with an admiring interest to Adam’s
discourse on building, but perhaps it suggested to
him that the building of his corn-rick had been proceeding
a little too long without the control of the master’s
eye, for when Adam had done speaking, he got up and
said, “Well, lad, I’ll bid you good-bye
now, for I’m off to the rick-yard again.”
Adam rose too, for he saw Dinah entering, with her
bonnet on and a little basket in her hand, preceded
by Totty.
“You’re ready, I see, Dinah,” Adam
said; “so we’ll set off, for the sooner
I’m at home the better.”
“Mother,” said Totty, with her treble
pipe, “Dinah was saying her prayers and crying
ever so.”
“Hush, hush,” said the mother, “little
gells mustn’t chatter.”
Whereupon the father, shaking with silent laughter,
set Totty on the white deal table and desired her
to kiss him. Mr. and Mrs. Poyser, you perceive,
had no correct principles of education.
“Come back to-morrow if Mrs. Bede doesn’t
want you, Dinah,” said Mrs. Poyser: “but
you can stay, you know, if she’s ill.”
So, when the good-byes had been said, Dinah and Adam
left the Hall Farm together.
In the Cottage
Adam did not ask Dinah to take his arm when they
got out into the lane. He had never yet done
so, often as they had walked together, for he had
observed that she never walked arm-in-arm with Seth,
and he thought, perhaps, that kind of support was
not agreeable to her. So they walked apart, though
side by side, and the close poke of her little black
bonnet hid her face from him.
“You can’t be happy, then, to make the
Hall Farm your home, Dinah?” Adam said, with
the quiet interest of a brother, who has no anxiety
for himself in the matter. “It’s
a pity, seeing they’re so fond of you.”
“You know, Adam, my heart is as their heart,
so far as love for them and care for their welfare
goes, but they are in no present need. Their
sorrows are healed, and I feel that I am called back
to my old work, in which I found a blessing that I
have missed of late in the midst of too abundant worldly
good. I know it is a vain thought to flee from
the work that God appoints us, for the sake of finding
a greater blessing to our own souls, as if we could
choose for ourselves where we shall find the fulness
of the Divine Presence, instead of seeking it where
alone it is to be found, in loving obedience.
But now, I believe, I have a clear showing that my
work lies elsewhere—at least for a time.
In the years to come, if my aunt’s health should
fail, or she should otherwise need me, I shall return.”
“You know best, Dinah,” said Adam.
“I don’t believe you’d go against
the wishes of them that love you, and are akin to
you, without a good and sufficient reason in your
own conscience. I’ve no right to say anything
about my being sorry: you know well enough what
cause I have to put you above every other friend I’ve
got; and if it had been ordered so that you could
ha’ been my sister, and lived with us all our
lives, I should ha’ counted it the greatest
blessing as could happen to us now. But Seth
tells me there’s no hope o’ that:
your feelings are different, and perhaps I’m
taking too much upon me to speak about it.”
