"Molly," she said, rather languidly, "just run out and get me a bunch of
dock-leaves: the butter's ready to pack up now."
"D' you hear what's happened, Hetty?" said her aunt.
"No; how should I hear anything?" was the answer, in a pettish tone.
"Not as you'd care much, I daresay, if you did hear; for you're too
feather-headed to mind if everybody was dead, so as you could stay
upstairs a-dressing yourself for two hours by the clock. But anybody
besides yourself 'ud mind about such things happening to them as think
a deal more of you than you deserve. But Adam Bede and all his kin might
be drownded for what you'd care--you'd be perking at the glass the next
minute."
"Adam Bede--drowned?" said Hetty, letting her arms fall and looking
rather bewildered, but suspecting that her aunt was as usual
exaggerating with a didactic purpose.
"No, my dear, no," said Dinah kindly, for Mrs. Poyser had passed on to
the pantry without deigning more precise information. "Not Adam. Adam's
father, the old man, is drowned. He was drowned last night in the Willow
Brook. Mr. Irwine has just told me about it."
"Oh, how dreadful!" said Hetty, looking serious, but not deeply
affected; and as Molly now entered with the dock-leaves, she took them
silently and returned to the dairy without asking further questions.
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