ost like a flower itself. I'm
sure yours is."

"Oh, very well," said Hetty, with a little playful pout, taking the rose
out of her hair. "I'll put one o' Dinah's caps on when we go in, and
you'll see if I look better in it. She left one behind, so I can take
the pattern."

"Nay, nay, I don't want you to wear a Methodist cap like Dinah's. I
daresay it's a very ugly cap, and I used to think when I saw her here as
it was nonsense for her to dress different t' other people; but I never
rightly noticed her till she came to see mother last week, and then I
thought the cap seemed to fit her face somehow as th 'acorn-cup fits th'
acorn, and I shouldn't like to see her so well without it. But you've
got another sort o' face; I'd have you just as you are now, without
anything t' interfere with your own looks. It's like when a man's
singing a good tune--you don't want t' hear bells tinkling and
interfering wi' the sound."

He took her arm and put it within his again, looking down on her fondly.
He was afraid she should think he had lectured her, imagining, as we
are apt to do, that she had perceived all the thoughts he had only
half-expressed. And the thing he dreaded most was lest any cloud should
come over this evening's happiness. For the world he would not have
spoken of his love to Hetty yet, till this commencing kindness towards
him should have grown into unmistakable love. In his imagination he
saw long years of his future life stretching before him, blest with the
right to call Hetty his own: he could be content with very little at
present. So he took up the basket of currants once more, and they went
on towards the house.

The scene had quite changed in the half-hour that Adam had been in the
garden. The yard was full of life now: Marty was letting the screaming
geese through the gate, and wickedly provoking the gander by hissing at
him; the granary-door was groaning on its hinges as Alick shut it, after
dealing out the corn; the horses were being led out to watering,
amidst much barking of all the three dogs and many "whups" from Tim the
ploughman, as if the heavy animals who held down their meek, intelligent
heads, and lifted their shaggy feet so deliberately, were likely to rush
wildly in every direction but the right. Everybody was come back from
the meadow; and when Hetty and Adam entered the house-place, Mr. Poyser
was seated in the three-cornered chair, and the grandfather in the
large arm-chair opposite, look