That is a simple scene, reader. But it is almost
certain that you, too, have been in love—perhaps,
even, more than once, though you may not choose to
say so to all your feminine friends. If so, you
will no more think the slight words, the timid looks,
the tremulous touches, by which two human souls approach
each other gradually, like two little quivering rain-streams,
before they mingle into one—you will no
more think these things trivial than you will think
the first-detected signs of coming spring trivial,
though they be but a faint indescribable something
in the air and in the song of the birds, and the tiniest
perceptible budding on the hedge-row branches.
Those slight words and looks and touches are part
of the soul’s language; and the finest language,
I believe, is chiefly made up of unimposing words,
such as “light,” “sound,”
“stars,” “music”—words
really not worth looking at, or hearing, in themselves,
any more than “chips” or “sawdust.”
It is only that they happen to be the signs of something
unspeakably great and beautiful. I am of opinion
that love is a great and beautiful thing too, and
if you agree with me, the smallest signs of it will
not be chips and sawdust to you: they will rather
be like those little words, “light” and
“music,” stirring the long-winding fibres
of your memory and enriching your present with your
most precious past.
Chapter LI
Sunday Morning
Lisbeth’s touch of rheumatism could not
be made to appear serious enough to detain Dinah another
night from the Hall Farm, now she had made up her
mind to leave her aunt so soon, and at evening the
friends must part. “For a long while,”
Dinah had said, for she had told Lisbeth of her resolve.
“Then it’ll be for all my life, an’
I shall ne’er see thee again,” said Lisbeth.
“Long while! I’n got no long while
t’ live. An’ I shall be took bad
an’ die, an’ thee canst ne’er come
a-nigh me, an’ I shall die a-longing for thee.”
That had been the key-note of her wailing talk all
day; for Adam was not in the house, and so she put
no restraint on her complaining. She had tried
poor Dinah by returning again and again to the question,
why she must go away; and refusing to accept reasons,
which seemed to her nothing but whim and “contrairiness”;
and still more, by regretting that she “couldna’
ha’ one o’ the lads” and be her daughter.
“Thee couldstna put up wi’ Seth,”
she said. “He isna cliver enough for thee,
happen, but he’d ha’ been very good t’
thee—he’s as handy as can be at doin’
things for me when I’m bad, an’ he’s
as fond o’ the Bible an’ chappellin’
as thee art thysen. But happen, thee’dst
like a husband better as isna just the cut o’
thysen: the runnin’ brook isna athirst
for th’ rain. Adam ‘ud ha’ done
for thee—I know he would—an’
he might come t’ like thee well enough, if thee’dst
stop. But he’s as stubborn as th’
iron bar—there’s no bending him no
way but’s own. But he’d be a fine
husband for anybody, be they who they will, so looked-on
an’ so cliver as he is. And he’d
be rare an’ lovin’: it does me good
on’y a look o’ the lad’s eye when
he means kind tow’rt me.”
