It was but a short time--hardly two
months--since Adam had had his mind filled with delicious hopes as he
stood by Hetty's side un this garden. The remembrance of that scene had
often been with him since Thursday evening: the sunlight through
the apple-tree boughs, the red bunches, Hetty's sweet blush. It came
importunately now, on this sad evening, with the low-hanging clouds, but
he tried to suppress it, lest some emotion should impel him to say more
than was needful for Hetty's sake.
"After what I saw on Thursday night, Hetty," he began, "you won't think
me making too free in what I'm going to say. If you was being courted by
any man as 'ud make you his wife, and I'd known you was fond of him and
meant to have him, I should have no right to speak a word to you about
it; but when I see you're being made love to by a gentleman as can never
marry you, and doesna think o' marrying you, I feel bound t' interfere
for you. I can't speak about it to them as are i' the place o' your
parents, for that might bring worse trouble than's needful."
Adam's words relieved one of Hetty's fears, but they also carried a
meaning which sickened her with a strengthened foreboding. She was pale
and trembling, and yet she would have angrily contradicted Adam, if she
had dared to betray her feelings.
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