Dinah had never seen Hetty affected in this
way before, and, with her usual benignant hopefulness, she trusted it
was the stirring of a divine impulse. She kissed the sobbing thing, and
began to cry with her for grateful joy. But Hetty was simply in that
excitable state of mind in which there is no calculating what turn the
feelings may take from one moment to another, and for the first time she
became irritated under Dinah's caress. She pushed her away impatiently,
and said, with a childish sobbing voice, "Don't talk to me so, Dinah.
Why do you come to frighten me? I've never done anything to you. Why
can't you let me be?"
Poor Dinah felt a pang. She was too wise to persist, and only said
mildly, "Yes, my dear, you're tired; I won't hinder you any longer. Make
haste and get into bed. Good-night."
She went out of the room almost as quietly and quickly as if she had
been a ghost; but once by the side of her own bed, she threw herself on
her knees and poured out in deep silence all the passionate pity that
filled her heart.
As for Hetty, she was soon in the wood again--her waking dreams being
merged in a sleeping life scarcely more fragmentary and confused.
Chapter XVI
Links
ARTHUR DONNITHORNE, you remember, is under an engagement with himself to
go and see Mr.
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