He had been in bed
and asleep when Dinah had come in, in the evening, and now he wondered
whose step this could be. A foolish thought came, and moved him
strangely. As if it could be Hetty! She was the last person likely to
be in the house. And yet he felt reluctant to go and look and have the
clear proof that it was some one else. He stood leaning on a plank he
had taken hold of, listening to sounds which his imagination interpreted
for him so pleasantly that the keen strong face became suffused with a
timid tenderness. The light footstep moved about the kitchen, followed
by the sound of the sweeping brush, hardly making so much noise as the
lightest breeze that chases the autumn leaves along the dusty path; and
Adam's imagination saw a dimpled face, with dark bright eyes and roguish
smiles looking backward at this brush, and a rounded figure just leaning
a little to clasp the handle. A very foolish thought--it could not be
Hetty; but the only way of dismissing such nonsense from his head was
to go and see WHO it was, for his fancy only got nearer and nearer to
belief while he stood there listening. He loosed the plank and went to
the kitchen door.
"How do you do, Adam Bede?" said Dinah, in her calm treble, pausing from
her sweeping and fixing her mild grave eyes upon him.
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