"I hope my mother
was thankful to have you," he added, wondering rather anxiously what had
been Dinah's reception.
"Yes," said Dinah, resuming her work, "she seemed greatly comforted
after a while, and she's had a good deal of rest in the night, by times.
She was fast asleep when I left her."
"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.
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