fall then, but no one saw them except
good-natured Molly, for her aunt and uncle knelt with their backs
towards her. Molly, unable to imagine any cause for tears in church
except faintness, of which she had a vague traditional knowledge, drew
out of her pocket a queer little flat blue smelling-bottle, and after
much labour in pulling the cork out, thrust the narrow neck against
Hetty's nostrils. "It donna smell," she whispered, thinking this was a
great advantage which old salts had over fresh ones: they did you good
without biting your nose. Hetty pushed it away peevishly; but this
little flash of temper did what the salts could not have done--it roused
her to wipe away the traces of her tears, and try with all her might
not to shed any more. Hetty had a certain strength in her vain little
nature: she would have borne anything rather than be laughed at, or
pointed at with any other feeling than admiration; she would have
pressed her own nails into her tender flesh rather than people should
know a secret she did not want them to know.

What fluctuations there were in her busy thoughts and feelings, while
Mr. Irwine was pronouncing the solemn "Absolution" in her deaf ears, and
through all the tones of petition that followed! Anger lay very close to
disappointment, and soon won the victory over the conjectures her
small ingenuity could devise to account for Arthur's absence on the
supposition that he really wanted to come, really wanted to see her
again. And by the time she rose from her knees mechanically, because all
the rest were rising, the colour had returned to her cheeks even with
a heightened glow, for she was framing little indignant speeches to
herself, saying she hated Arthur for giving her this pain--she would
like him to suffer too. Yet while this selfish tumult was going on in
her soul, her eyes were bent down on her prayer-book, and the eyelids
with their dark fringe looked as lovely as ever. Adam Bede thought so,
as he glanced at her for a moment on rising from his knees.

But Adam's thoughts of Hetty did not deafen him to the service; they
rather blended with all the other deep feelings for which the church
service was a channel to him this afternoon, as a certain consciousness
of our entire past and our imagined future blends itself with all our
moments of keen sensibility. And to Adam the church service was the
best channel he could have found for his mingled regret, yearning, and
resignation; its inte