"But the wench takes arter her mother. I'd hard work t'
hould HER in, an' she married i' spite o' me--a feller wi' on'y two head
o' stock when there should ha' been ten on's farm--she might well die o'
th' inflammation afore she war thirty."
It was seldom the old man made so long a speech, but his son's question
had fallen like a bit of dry fuel on the embers of a long unextinguished
resentment, which had always made the grandfather more indifferent to
Hetty than to his son's children. Her mother's fortune had been spent by
that good-for-nought Sorrel, and Hetty had Sorrel's blood in her veins.
"Poor thing, poor thing!" said Martin the younger, who was sorry to have
provoked this retrospective harshness. "She'd but bad luck. But Hetty's
got as good a chance o' getting a solid, sober husband as any gell i'
this country."
After throwing out this pregnant hint, Mr. Poyser recurred to his pipe
and his silence, looking at Hetty to see if she did not give some sign
of having renounced her ill-advised wish. But instead of that, Hetty,
in spite of herself, began to cry, half out of ill temper at the denial,
half out of the day's repressed sadness.
"Hegh, hegh!" said Mr. Poyser, meaning to check her playfully, "don't
let's have any crying.
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