id Adam.

"As soon as possible--after I've made the necessary arrangements.
Good-bye, Adam. I shall think of you going about the old place."

"Good-bye, sir. God bless you."

The hands were clasped once more, and Adam left the Hermitage, feeling
that sorrow was more bearable now hatred was gone.

As soon as the door was closed behind him, Arthur went to the
waste-paper basket and took out the little pink silk handkerchief.

Book Six

Chapter XLIX

At the Hall Farm

THE first autumnal afternoon sunshine of 1801--more than eighteen months
after that parting of Adam and Arthur in the Hermitage--was on the
yard at the Hall Farm; and the bull-dog was in one of his most excited
moments, for it was that hour of the day when the cows were being driven
into the yard for their afternoon milking. No wonder the patient beasts
ran confusedly into the wrong places, for the alarming din of the
bull-dog was mingled with more distant sounds which the timid feminine
creatures, with pardonable superstition, imagined also to have some
relation to their own movements--with the tremendous crack of the
waggoner's whip, the roar of his voice, and the booming thunder of the
waggon, as it left the rick-yard empty of its golden load.

The milking of the cows was a sight Mrs. Poyser loved, and at this
hour on mild days she was usually standing at the house door, with her
knitting in her hands, in quiet contemplation, only heightened to a
keener interest when the vicious yellow cow, who had once kicked over a
pailful of precious milk, was about to undergo the preventive punishment
of having her hinder-legs strapped.

To-day, however, Mrs. Poyser gave but a divided attention to the
arrival of the cows, for she was in eager discussion with Dinah, who was
stitching Mr. Poyser's shirt-collars, and had borne patiently to have
her thread broken three times by Totty pulling at her arm with a sudden
insistence that she should look at "Baby," that is, at a large wooden
doll with no legs and a long skirt, whose bald head Totty, seated in her
small chair at Dinah's side, was caressing and pressing to her fat cheek
with much fervour. Totty is larger by more than two years' growth than
when you first saw her, and she has on a black frock under her pinafore.
Mrs. Poyser too has on a black gown, which seems to heighten the family
likeness between her and Dinah. In other respects there is little
outward change now discernible in our old