prompt:
Chapter: LISBETH'S touch of rheumatism could not be made to appear serious enough
to detain Dinah another night from the Hall Farm, now she had made up
her mind to leave her aunt so soon, and at evening the friends must
part. "For a long while," Dinah had said, for she had told Lisbeth of
her resolve.

"Then it'll be for all my life, an' I shall ne'er see thee again," said
Lisbeth. "Long while! I'n got no long while t' live. An' I shall be
took bad an' die, an' thee canst ne'er come a-nigh me, an' I shall die
a-longing for thee."

That had been the key-note of her wailing talk all day; for Adam was not
in the house, and so she put no restraint on her complaining. She had
tried poor Dinah by returning again and again to the question, why
she must go away; and refusing to accept reasons, which seemed to her
nothing but whim and "contrairiness"; and still more, by regretting that
she "couldna' ha' one o' the lads" and be her daughter.

"Thee couldstna put up wi' Seth," she said. "He isna cliver enough for
thee, happen, but he'd ha' been very good t' thee--he's as handy as can
be at doin' things for me when I'm bad, an' he's as fond o' the Bible
an' chappellin' as thee art thysen. But happen, thee'dst like a husband
better as isna just the cut o' thysen: the runnin' brook isna athirst
for th' rain. Adam 'ud ha' done for thee--I know he would--an' he might
come t' like thee well enough, if thee'dst stop. But he's as stubborn
as th' iron bar--there's no bending him no way but's own. But he'd be
a fine husband for anybody, be they who they will, so looked-on an' so
cliver as he is. And he'd be rare an' lovin': it does me good on'y a
look o' the lad's eye when he means kind tow'rt me."

Dinah tried to escape from Lisbeth's closest looks and questions by
finding little tasks of housework that kept her moving about, and as
soon as Seth came home in the evening she put on her bonnet to go. It
touched Dinah keenly to say the last good-bye, and still more to look
round on her way across the fields and see the old woman still standing
at the door, gazing after her till she must have been the faintest speck
in the dim aged eyes. "The God of love and peace be with them,"
Dinah prayed, as she looked back from the last stile. "Make them glad
according to the days wherein thou hast afflicted them, and the years
wherein they have seen evil. It is thy will that I should part from
them; let me have no will but thine."

Lisbeth turned into the house at last and sat down in the workshop near
Seth, who was busying himself there with fitting some bits of turned
wood he had brought from the village into a small work-box, which he
meant to give to Dinah before she went away.

"Thee't see her again o' Sunday afore she goes," were her first words.
"If thee wast good for anything, thee'dst make her come in again o'
Sunday night wi' thee, and see me once more."

"Nay, Mother," said Seth. "Dinah 'ud be sure to come again if she saw
right to come. I should have no need to persuade her. She only thinks it
'ud be troubling thee for nought, just to come in to say good-bye over
again."

"She'd ne'er go away, I know, if Adam 'ud be fond on her an' marry her,
but everything's so contrairy," said Lisbeth, with a burst of vexation.

Seth paused a moment and looked up, with a slight blush, at his mother's
face. "What! Has she said anything o' that sort to thee, Mother?" he
said, in a lower tone.

"Said? Nay, she'll say nothin'. It's on'y the men as have to wait till
folks say things afore they find 'em out."

"Well, but what makes thee think so, Mother? What's put it into thy
head?"

"It's no matter what's put it into my head. My head's none so hollow as
it must get in, an' nought to put it there. I know she's fond on him, as
I know th' wind's comin' in at the door, an' that's anoof. An' he might
be willin' to marry her if he know'd she's fond on him, but he'll ne'er
think on't if somebody doesna put it into's head."

His mother's suggestion about Dinah's feeling towards Adam was not quite
a new thought to Seth, but her last words alarmed him, lest she should
herself undertake to open Adam's eyes. He was not sure about Dinah's
feeling, and he thought he was sure about Adam's.

"Nay, Mother, nay," he said, earnestly, "thee mustna think o' speaking
o' such things to Adam. Thee'st no right to say what Dinah's feelings
are if she hasna told thee, and it 'ud do nothing but mischief to say
such things to Adam. He feels very grateful and affectionate toward
Dinah, but he's no thoughts towards her that 'ud incline him to make her
his wife, and I don't believe Dinah 'ud marry him either. I don't think
she'll marry at all."

"Eh," said Lisbeth, impatiently. "Thee think'st so 'cause she wouldna
ha' thee. She'll ne'er marry thee; thee mightst as well like her t' ha'
thy brother."

Seth was hurt. "Mother," he said, in a remonstrating tone, "don't think
that of me. I should be as thankful t' have her for a sister as thee
wouldst t' have her for a daughter. I've no more thoughts about myself
in that thing, and I shall take it hard if ever thee say'st it again."

"Well, well, then thee shouldstna cross me wi' sayin' things arena as I
say they are."

"But, Mother," said Seth, "thee'dst be doing Dinah a wrong by telling
Adam what thee think'st about her. It 'ud do nothing but mischief,
for it 'ud make Adam uneasy if he doesna feel the same to her. And I'm
pretty sure he feels nothing o' the sort."

"Eh, donna tell me what thee't sure on; thee know'st nought about it.
What's he allays goin' to the Poysers' for, if he didna want t' see her?
He goes twice where he used t' go once. Happen he knowsna as he wants
t' see her; he knowsna as I put salt in's broth, but he'd miss it pretty
quick if it warna there. He'll ne'er think o' marrying if it isna put
into's head, an' if thee'dst any love for thy mother, thee'dst put him
up to't an' not let her go away out o' my sight, when I might ha' her to
make a bit o' comfort for me afore I go to bed to my old man under the
white thorn."

"Nay, Mother," said Seth, "thee mustna think me unkind, but I should
be going against my conscience if I took upon me to say what Dinah's
feelings are. And besides that, I think I should give offence to Adam by
speaking to him at all about marrying; and I counsel thee not to do't.
Thee may'st be quite deceived about Dinah. Nay, I'm pretty sure, by
words she said to me last Sabbath, as she's no mind to marry."

"Eh, thee't as contrairy as the rest on 'em. If it war summat I didna
want, it 'ud be done fast enough."

Lisbeth rose from the bench at this, and went out of the workshop,
leaving Seth in much anxiety lest she should disturb Adam's mind about
Dinah. He consoled himself after a time with reflecting that, since
Adam's trouble, Lisbeth had been very timid about speaking to him on
matters of feeling, and that she would hardly dare to approach this
tenderest of all subjects. Even if she did, he hoped Adam would not take
much notice of what she said.

Seth was right in believing that Lisbeth would be held in restraint by
timidity, and during the next three days, the intervals in which she had
an opportunity of speaking to Adam were too rare and short to cause her
any strong temptation. But in her long solitary hours she brooded over
her regretful thoughts about Dinah, till they had grown very near that
point of unmanageable strength when thoughts are apt to take wing out
of their secret nest in a startling manner. And on Sunday morning, when
Seth went away to chapel at Treddleston, the dangerous opportunity came.

Sunday morning was the happiest time in all the week to Lisbeth, for
as there was no service at Hayslope church till the afternoon, Adam was
always at home, doing nothing but reading, an occupation in which she
could venture to interrupt him. Moreover, she had always a better dinner
than usual to prepare for her sons--very frequently for Adam and herself
alone, Seth being often away the entire day--and the smell of the roast
meat before the clear fire in the clean kitchen, the clock ticking in
a peaceful Sunday manner, her darling Adam seated near her in his best
clothes, doing nothing very important, so that she could go and stroke
her hand across his hair if she liked, and see him look up at her and
smile, while Gyp, rather jealous, poked his muzzle up between them--all
these things made poor Lisbeth's earthly paradise.

The book Adam most often read on a Sunday morning was his large pictured
Bible, and this morning it lay open before him on the round white deal
table in the kitchen; for he sat there in spite of the fire, because he
knew his mother liked to have him with her, and it was the only day in
the week when he could indulge her in that way. You would have liked to
see Adam reading his Bible. He never opened it on a weekday, and so he
came to it as a holiday book, serving him for history, biography, and
poetry. He held one hand thrust between his waistcoat buttons, and the
other ready to turn the pages, and in the course of the morning you
would have seen many changes in his face. Sometimes his lips moved in
semi-articulation--it was when he came to a speech that he could fancy
himself uttering, such as Samuel's dying speech to the people; then his
eyebrows would be raised, and the corners of his mouth would quiver a
little with sad sympathy--something, perhaps old Isaac's meeting with
his son, touched him closely; at other times, over the New Testament,
a very solemn look would come upon his face, and he would every now and
then shake his head in serious assent, or just lift up his hand and let
it fall again. And on some mornings, when he read in the Apocrypha, of
which he was very fond, the son of Sirach's keen-edged words would bring
a delighted smile, though he also enjoyed the freedom of occasionally
differing from an Apocryphal writer. For Adam knew the Articles quite
well, as became a good churchman.

Lisbeth, in the pauses of attending to her dinner, always sat opposite
to him and watched him, till she could rest no longer without going
up to him and giving him a caress, to call his attention to her. This
morning he was reading the Gospel according to St. Matthew, and Lisbeth
had been standing close by him for some minutes, stroking his hair,
which was smoother than usual this morning, and looking down at the
large page with silent wonderment at the mystery of letters. She was
encouraged to continue this caress, because when she first went up
to him, he had thrown himself back in his chair to look at her
affectionately and say, "Why, Mother, thee look'st rare and hearty this
morning. Eh, Gyp wants me t' look at him. He can't abide to think I love
thee the best." Lisbeth said nothing, because she wanted to say so many
things. And now there was a new leaf to be turned over, and it was
a picture--that of the angel seated on the great stone that has been
rolled away from the sepulchre. This picture had one strong association
in Lisbeth's memory, for she had been reminded of it when she first
saw Dinah, and Adam had no sooner turned the page, and lifted the book
sideways that they might look at the angel, than she said, "That's
her--that's Dinah."

Adam smiled, and, looking more intently at the angel's face, said, "It
is a bit like her; but Dinah's prettier, I think."

"Well, then, if thee think'st her so pretty, why arn't fond on her?"

Adam looked up in surprise. "Why, Mother, dost think I don't set store
by Dinah?"

"Nay," said Lisbeth, frightened at her own courage, yet feeling that
she had broken the ice, and the waters must flow, whatever mischief they
might do. "What's th' use o' settin' store by things as are thirty mile
off? If thee wast fond enough on her, thee wouldstna let her go away."

"But I've no right t' hinder her, if she thinks well," said Adam,
looking at his book as if he wanted to go on reading. He foresaw a
series of complaints tending to nothing. Lisbeth sat down again in the
chair opposite to him, as she said:

"But she wouldna think well if thee wastna so contrairy." Lisbeth dared
not venture beyond a vague phrase yet.

"Contrairy, mother?" Adam said, looking up again in some anxiety. "What
have I done? What dost mean?"

"Why, thee't never look at nothin', nor think o' nothin', but thy
figurin, an' thy work," said Lisbeth, half-crying. "An' dost think thee
canst go on so all thy life, as if thee wast a man cut out o' timber?
An' what wut do when thy mother's gone, an' nobody to take care on thee
as thee gett'st a bit o' victual comfortable i' the mornin'?"

"What hast got i' thy mind, Mother?" said Adam, vexed at this
whimpering. "I canna see what thee't driving at. Is there anything I
could do for thee as I don't do?"

"Aye, an' that there is. Thee might'st do as I should ha' somebody wi'
me to comfort me a bit, an' wait on me when I'm bad, an' be good to me."

"Well, Mother, whose fault is it there isna some tidy body i' th' house
t' help thee? It isna by my wish as thee hast a stroke o' work to do. We
can afford it--I've told thee often enough. It 'ud be a deal better for
us."

"Eh, what's the use o' talking o' tidy bodies, when thee mean'st one o'
th' wenches out o' th' village, or somebody from Treddles'on as I ne'er
set eyes on i' my life? I'd sooner make a shift an' get into my own
coffin afore I die, nor ha' them folks to put me in."

Adam was silent, and tried to go on reading. That was the utmost
severity he could show towards his mother on a Sunday morning. But
Lisbeth had gone too far now to check herself, and after scarcely a
minute's quietness she began again.

"Thee mightst know well enough who 'tis I'd like t' ha' wi' me. It isna
many folks I send for t' come an' see me. I reckon. An' thee'st had the
fetchin' on her times enow."

"Thee mean'st Dinah, Mother, I know," said Adam. "But it's no use
setting thy mind on what can't be. If Dinah 'ud be willing to stay at
Hayslope, it isn't likely she can come away from her aunt's house, where
they hold her like a daughter, and where she's more bound than she is to
us. If it had been so that she could ha' married Seth, that 'ud ha' been
a great blessing to us, but we can't have things just as we like in this
life. Thee must try and make up thy mind to do without her."

"Nay, but I canna ma' up my mind, when she's just cut out for thee; an'
nought shall ma' me believe as God didna make her an' send her there o'
purpose for thee. What's it sinnify about her bein' a Methody! It 'ud
happen wear out on her wi' marryin'."

Adam threw himself back in his chair and looked at his mother. He
understood now what she had been aiming at from the beginning of the
conversation. It was as unreasonable, impracticable a wish as she had
ever urged, but he could not help being moved by so entirely new an
idea. The chief point, however, was to chase away the notion from his
mother's mind as quickly as possible.

"Mother," he said, gravely, "thee't talking wild. Don't let me hear
thee say such things again. It's no good talking o' what can never be.
Dinah's not for marrying; she's fixed her heart on a different sort o'
life."

"Very like," said Lisbeth, impatiently, "very like she's none for
marr'ing, when them as she'd be willin' t' marry wonna ax her. I
shouldna ha' been for marr'ing thy feyther if he'd ne'er axed me; an'
she's as fond o' thee as e'er I war o' Thias, poor fellow."

The blood rushed to Adam's face, and for a few moments he was not quite
conscious where he was. His mother and the kitchen had vanished for him,
and he saw nothing but Dinah's face turned up towards his. It seemed
as if there were a resurrection of his dead joy. But he woke up very
speedily from that dream (the waking was chill and sad), for it would
have been very foolish in him to believe his mother's words--she could
have no ground for them. He was prompted to express his disbelief very
strongly--perhaps that he might call forth the proofs, if there were any
to be offered.

"What dost say such things for, Mother, when thee'st got no foundation
for 'em? Thee know'st nothing as gives thee a right to say that."

"Then I knowna nought as gi'es me a right to say as the year's turned,
for all I feel it fust thing when I get up i' th' morning. She isna fond
o' Seth, I reckon, is she? She doesna want to marry HIM? But I can see
as she doesna behave tow'rt thee as she daes tow'rt Seth. She makes no
more o' Seth's coming a-nigh her nor if he war Gyp, but she's all of a
tremble when thee't a-sittin' down by her at breakfast an' a-looking at
her. Thee think'st thy mother knows nought, but she war alive afore thee
wast born."

"But thee canstna be sure as the trembling means love?" said Adam
anxiously.

"Eh, what else should it mane? It isna hate, I reckon. An' what should
she do but love thee? Thee't made to be loved--for where's there a
straighter cliverer man? An' what's it sinnify her bein' a Methody? It's
on'y the marigold i' th' parridge."

Adam had thrust his hands in his pockets, and was looking down at the
book on the table, without seeing any of the letters. He was trembling
like a gold-seeker who sees the strong promise of gold but sees in the
same moment a sickening vision of disappointment. He could not trust his
mother's insight; she had seen what she wished to see. And yet--and yet,
now the suggestion had been made to him, he remembered so many things,
very slight things, like the stirring of the water by an imperceptible
breeze, which seemed to him some confirmation of his mother's words.

Lisbeth noticed that he was moved. She went on, "An' thee't find out
as thee't poorly aff when she's gone. Thee't fonder on her nor thee
know'st. Thy eyes follow her about, welly as Gyp's follow thee."

Adam could sit still no longer. He rose, took down his hat, and went out
into the fields.

The sunshine was on them: that early autumn sunshine which we should
know was not summer's, even if there were not the touches of yellow
on the lime and chestnut; the Sunday sunshine too, which has more than
autumnal calmness for the working man; the morning sunshine, which still
leaves the dew-crystals on the fine gossamer webs in the shadow of the
bushy hedgerows.

Adam needed the calm influence; he was amazed at the way in which
this new thought of Dinah's love had taken possession of him, with an
overmastering power that made all other feelings give way before the
impetuous desire to know that the thought was true. Strange, that till
that moment the possibility of their ever being lovers had never crossed
his mind, and yet now, all his longing suddenly went out towards that
possibility. He had no more doubt or hesitation as to his own wishes
than the bird that flies towards the opening through which the daylight
gleams and the breath of heaven enters.

The autumnal Sunday sunshine soothed him, but not by preparing him with
resignation to the disappointment if his mother--if he himself--proved
to be mistaken about Dinah. It soothed him by gentle encouragement of
his hopes. Her love was so like that calm sunshine that they seemed to
make one presence to him, and he believed in them both alike. And Dinah
was so bound up with the sad memories of his first passion that he was
not forsaking them, but rather giving them a new sacredness by loving
her. Nay, his love for her had grown out of that past: it was the noon
of that morning.

But Seth? Would the lad be hurt? Hardly; for he had seemed quite
contented of late, and there was no selfish jealousy in him; he had
never been jealous of his mother's fondness for Adam. But had he seen
anything of what their mother talked about? Adam longed to know this,
for he thought he could trust Seth's observation better than his
mother's. He must talk to Seth before he went to see Dinah, and, with
this intention in his mind, he walked back to the cottage and said to
his mother, "Did Seth say anything to thee about when he was coming
home? Will he be back to dinner?"

"Aye, lad, he'll be back for a wonder. He isna gone to Treddles'on. He's
gone somewhere else a-preachin' and a-prayin'."

"Hast any notion which way he's gone?" said Adam.

"Nay, but he aften goes to th' Common. Thee know'st more o's goings nor
I do."

Adam wanted to go and meet Seth, but he must content himself with
walking about the near fields and getting sight of him as soon as
possible. That would not be for more than an hour to come, for Seth
would scarcely be at home much before their dinner-time, which was
twelve o'clock. But Adam could not sit down to his reading again, and he
sauntered along by the brook and stood leaning against the stiles, with
eager intense eyes, which looked as if they saw something very vividly;
but it was not the brook or the willows, not the fields or the sky.
Again and again his vision was interrupted by wonder at the strength of
his own feeling, at the strength and sweetness of this new love--almost
like the wonder a man feels at the added power he finds in himself for
an art which he had laid aside for a space. How is it that the poets
have said so many fine things about our first love, so few about our
later love? Are their first poems their best? Or are not those the best
which come from their fuller thought, their larger experience, their
deeper-rooted affections? The boy's flutelike voice has its own spring
charm; but the man should yield a richer deeper music.

At last, there was Seth, visible at the farthest stile, and Adam
hastened to meet him. Seth was surprised, and thought something unusual
must have happened, but when Adam came up, his face said plainly enough
that it was nothing alarming.

"Where hast been?" said Adam, when they were side by side.

"I've been to the Common," said Seth. "Dinah's been speaking the Word
to a little company of hearers at Brimstone's, as they call him. They're
folks as never go to church hardly--them on the Common--but they'll go
and hear Dinah a bit. She's been speaking with power this forenoon
from the words, 'I came not to call the righteous, but sinners to
repentance.' And there was a little thing happened as was pretty to see.
The women mostly bring their children with 'em, but to-day there was one
stout curly headed fellow about three or four year old, that I never saw
there before. He was as naughty as could be at the beginning while I was
praying, and while we was singing, but when we all sat down and Dinah
began to speak, th' young un stood stock still all at once, and began to
look at her with's mouth open, and presently he ran away from's mother
and went to Dinah, and pulled at her, like a little dog, for her to take
notice of him. So Dinah lifted him up and held th' lad on her lap, while
she went on speaking; and he was as good as could be till he went to
sleep--and the mother cried to see him."

"It's a pity she shouldna be a mother herself," said Adam, "so fond as
the children are of her. Dost think she's quite fixed against marrying,
Seth? Dost think nothing 'ud turn her?"

There was something peculiar in his brother's tone, which made Seth
steal a glance at his face before he answered.

"It 'ud be wrong of me to say nothing 'ud turn her," he answered. "But
if thee mean'st it about myself, I've given up all thoughts as she can
ever be my wife. She calls me her brother, and that's enough."

"But dost think she might ever get fond enough of anybody else to be
willing to marry 'em?" said Adam rather shyly.

"Well," said Seth, after some hesitation, "it's crossed my mind
sometimes o' late as she might; but Dinah 'ud let no fondness for the
creature draw her out o' the path as she believed God had marked out for
her. If she thought the leading was not from Him, she's not one to
be brought under the power of it. And she's allays seemed clear about
that--as her work was to minister t' others, and make no home for
herself i' this world."

"But suppose," said Adam, earnestly, "suppose there was a man as 'ud
let her do just the same and not interfere with her--she might do a good
deal o' what she does now, just as well when she was married as when
she was single. Other women of her sort have married--that's to say, not
just like her, but women as preached and attended on the sick and needy.
There's Mrs. Fletcher as she talks of."

A new light had broken in on Seth. He turned round, and laying his
hand on Adam's shoulder, said, "Why, wouldst like her to marry THEE,
Brother?"

Adam looked doubtfully at Seth's inquiring eyes and said, "Wouldst be
hurt if she was to be fonder o' me than o' thee?"

"Nay," said Seth warmly, "how canst think it? Have I felt thy trouble so
little that I shouldna feel thy joy?"

There was silence a few moments as they walked on, and then Seth said,
"I'd no notion as thee'dst ever think of her for a wife."

"But is it o' any use to think of her?" said Adam. "What dost say?
Mother's made me as I hardly know where I am, with what she's been
saying to me this forenoon. She says she's sure Dinah feels for me more
than common, and 'ud be willing t' have me. But I'm afraid she speaks
without book. I want to know if thee'st seen anything."

"It's a nice point to speak about," said Seth, "and I'm afraid o' being
wrong; besides, we've no right t' intermeddle with people's feelings
when they wouldn't tell 'em themselves."

Seth paused.

"But thee mightst ask her," he said presently. "She took no offence at
me for asking, and thee'st more right than I had, only thee't not in the
Society. But Dinah doesn't hold wi' them as are for keeping the Society
so strict to themselves. She doesn't mind about making folks enter the
Society, so as they're fit t' enter the kingdom o' God. Some o' the
brethren at Treddles'on are displeased with her for that."

"Where will she be the rest o' the day?" said Adam.

"She said she shouldn't leave the farm again to-day," said Seth,
"because it's her last Sabbath there, and she's going t' read out o' the
big Bible wi' the children."

Adam thought--but did not say--"Then I'll go this afternoon; for if I
go to church, my thoughts 'ull be with her all the while. They must sing
th' anthem without me to-day."

Q: Can you write an appropriate summary of the above paragraphs?
A:

completion: Dinah takes her leave of Lisbeth. After bidding farewell, Lisbeth goes into the workshop where Seth is working on a box for Dinah, and she begins to berate him because Dinah is going away. Ignoring Seth's feelings for Dinah, she says she knows Dinah would stay if only Adam would marry her. Seth is appalled at the idea and feels confident that Adam does not love Dinah. Lisbeth accuses Seth of jealousy, and he is hurt. On Sunday, Lisbeth approaches Adam and suggests that he propose to Dinah. Adam is suddenly struck by the idea but does not trust his mother's belief that Dinah loves him. Puzzled, he goes out to meet Seth and asks him what he thinks. Seth does not think Dinah wants to marry anyone but assures Adam that it would be wonderful to have Dinah as a sister-in-law and that he would not be jealous. Seth also suggests that Adam might as well ask Dinah. She took no offense, after all, when Seth asked her, even though her answer was no


prompt:
Chapter: IT was about three o'clock when Adam entered the farmyard and roused
Alick and the dogs from their Sunday dozing. Alick said everybody was
gone to church "but th' young missis"--so he called Dinah--but this
did not disappoint Adam, although the "everybody" was so liberal as
to include Nancy the dairymaid, whose works of necessity were not
unfrequently incompatible with church-going.

There was perfect stillness about the house. The doors were all closed,
and the very stones and tubs seemed quieter than usual. Adam heard the
water gently dripping from the pump--that was the only sound--and
he knocked at the house door rather softly, as was suitable in that
stillness.

The door opened, and Dinah stood before him, colouring deeply with the
great surprise of seeing Adam at this hour, when she knew it was his
regular practice to be at church. Yesterday he would have said to her
without any difficulty, "I came to see you, Dinah: I knew the rest were
not at home." But to-day something prevented him from saying that, and
he put out his hand to her in silence. Neither of them spoke, and yet
both wished they could speak, as Adam entered, and they sat down. Dinah
took the chair she had just left; it was at the corner of the table
near the window, and there was a book lying on the table, but it was not
open. She had been sitting perfectly still, looking at the small bit
of clear fire in the bright grate. Adam sat down opposite her, in Mr.
Poyser's three-cornered chair.

"Your mother is not ill again, I hope, Adam?" Dinah said, recovering
herself. "Seth said she was well this morning."

"No, she's very hearty to-day," said Adam, happy in the signs of Dinah's
feeling at the sight of him, but shy.

"There's nobody at home, you see," Dinah said; "but you'll wait. You've
been hindered from going to church to-day, doubtless."

"Yes," Adam said, and then paused, before he added, "I was thinking
about you: that was the reason."

This confession was very awkward and sudden, Adam felt, for he thought
Dinah must understand all he meant. But the frankness of the words
caused her immediately to interpret them into a renewal of his brotherly
regrets that she was going away, and she answered calmly, "Do not be
careful and troubled for me, Adam. I have all things and abound at
Snowfield. And my mind is at rest, for I am not seeking my own will in
going."

"But if things were different, Dinah," said Adam, hesitatingly. "If you
knew things that perhaps you don't know now...."

Dinah looked at him inquiringly, but instead of going on, he reached a
chair and brought it near the corner of the table where she was sitting.
She wondered, and was afraid--and the next moment her thoughts flew to
the past: was it something about those distant unhappy ones that she
didn't know?

Adam looked at her. It was so sweet to look at her eyes, which had now
a self-forgetful questioning in them--for a moment he forgot that he
wanted to say anything, or that it was necessary to tell her what he
meant.

"Dinah," he said suddenly, taking both her hands between his, "I love
you with my whole heart and soul. I love you next to God who made me."

Dinah's lips became pale, like her cheeks, and she trembled violently
under the shock of painful joy. Her hands were cold as death between
Adam's. She could not draw them away, because he held them fast.

"Don't tell me you can't love me, Dinah. Don't tell me we must part and
pass our lives away from one another."

The tears were trembling in Dinah's eyes, and they fell before she could
answer. But she spoke in a quiet low voice.

"Yes, dear Adam, we must submit to another Will. We must part."

"Not if you love me, Dinah--not if you love me," Adam said passionately.
"Tell me--tell me if you can love me better than a brother?"

Dinah was too entirely reliant on the Supreme guidance to attempt to
achieve any end by a deceptive concealment. She was recovering now from
the first shock of emotion, and she looked at Adam with simple sincere
eyes as she said, "Yes, Adam, my heart is drawn strongly towards you;
and of my own will, if I had no clear showing to the contrary, I could
find my happiness in being near you and ministering to you continually.
I fear I should forget to rejoice and weep with others; nay, I fear I
should forget the Divine presence, and seek no love but yours."

Adam did not speak immediately. They sat looking at each other in
delicious silence--for the first sense of mutual love excludes other
feelings; it will have the soul all to itself.

"Then, Dinah," Adam said at last, "how can there be anything contrary
to what's right in our belonging to one another and spending our lives
together? Who put this great love into our hearts? Can anything be
holier than that? For we can help one another in everything as is good.
I'd never think o' putting myself between you and God, and saying you
oughtn't to do this and you oughtn't to do that. You'd follow your
conscience as much as you do now."

"Yes, Adam," Dinah said, "I know marriage is a holy state for those who
are truly called to it, and have no other drawing; but from my childhood
upwards I have been led towards another path; all my peace and my joy
have come from having no life of my own, no wants, no wishes for myself,
and living only in God and those of his creatures whose sorrows and joys
he has given me to know. Those have been very blessed years to me, and I
feel that if I was to listen to any voice that would draw me aside from
that path, I should be turning my back on the light that has shone upon
me, and darkness and doubt would take hold of me. We could not bless
each other, Adam, if there were doubts in my soul, and if I yearned,
when it was too late, after that better part which had once been given
me and I had put away from me."

"But if a new feeling has come into your mind, Dinah, and if you love me
so as to be willing to be nearer to me than to other people, isn't that
a sign that it's right for you to change your life? Doesn't the love
make it right when nothing else would?"

"Adam, my mind is full of questionings about that; for now, since you
tell me of your strong love towards me, what was clear to me has become
dark again. I felt before that my heart was too strongly drawn towards
you, and that your heart was not as mine; and the thought of you had
taken hold of me, so that my soul had lost its freedom, and was becoming
enslaved to an earthly affection, which made me anxious and careful
about what should befall myself. For in all other affection I had been
content with any small return, or with none; but my heart was beginning
to hunger after an equal love from you. And I had no doubt that I must
wrestle against that as a great temptation, and the command was clear
that I must go away."

"But now, dear, dear Dinah, now you know I love you better than you love
me...it's all different now. You won't think o' going. You'll stay, and
be my dear wife, and I shall thank God for giving me my life as I never
thanked him before."

"Adam, it's hard to me to turn a deaf ear...you know it's hard; but a
great fear is upon me. It seems to me as if you were stretching out your
arms to me, and beckoning me to come and take my ease and live for my
own delight, and Jesus, the Man of Sorrows, was standing looking towards
me, and pointing to the sinful, and suffering, and afflicted. I have
seen that again and again when I have been sitting in stillness and
darkness, and a great terror has come upon me lest I should become hard,
and a lover of self, and no more bear willingly the Redeemer's cross."

Dinah had closed her eyes, and a faint shudder went through her. "Adam,"
she went on, "you wouldn't desire that we should seek a good through
any unfaithfulness to the light that is in us; you wouldn't believe that
could be a good. We are of one mind in that."

"Yes, Dinah," said Adam sadly, "I'll never be the man t' urge you
against your conscience. But I can't give up the hope that you may come
to see different. I don't believe your loving me could shut up your
heart--it's only adding to what you've been before, not taking away from
it. For it seems to me it's the same with love and happiness as with
sorrow--the more we know of it the better we can feel what other
people's lives are or might be, and so we shall only be more tender to
'em, and wishful to help 'em. The more knowledge a man has, the better
he'll do's work; and feeling's a sort o' knowledge."

Dinah was silent; her eyes were fixed in contemplation of something
visible only to herself. Adam went on presently with his pleading, "And
you can do almost as much as you do now. I won't ask you to go to church
with me of a Sunday. You shall go where you like among the people, and
teach 'em; for though I like church best, I don't put my soul above
yours, as if my words was better for you to follow than your own
conscience. And you can help the sick just as much, and you'll have more
means o' making 'em a bit comfortable; and you'll be among all your
own friends as love you, and can help 'em and be a blessing to 'em till
their dying day. Surely, Dinah, you'd be as near to God as if you was
living lonely and away from me."

Dinah made no answer for some time. Adam was still holding her hands and
looking at her with almost trembling anxiety, when she turned her grave
loving eyes on his and said, in rather a sad voice, "Adam there is truth
in what you say, and there's many of the brethren and sisters who have
greater strength than I have, and find their hearts enlarged by the
cares of husband and kindred. But I have not faith that it would be so
with me, for since my affections have been set above measure on you, I
have had less peace and joy in God. I have felt as it were a division
in my heart. And think how it is with me, Adam. That life I have led is
like a land I have trodden in blessedness since my childhood; and if
I long for a moment to follow the voice which calls me to another land
that I know not, I cannot but fear that my soul might hereafter yearn
for that early blessedness which I had forsaken; and where doubt enters
there is not perfect love. I must wait for clearer guidance. I must go
from you, and we must submit ourselves entirely to the Divine Will.
We are sometimes required to lay our natural lawful affections on the
altar."

Adam dared not plead again, for Dinah's was not the voice of caprice or
insincerity. But it was very hard for him; his eyes got dim as he looked
at her.

"But you may come to feel satisfied...to feel that you may come to me
again, and we may never part, Dinah?"

"We must submit ourselves, Adam. With time, our duty will be made clear.
It may be when I have entered on my former life, I shall find all these
new thoughts and wishes vanish, and become as things that were not. Then
I shall know that my calling is not towards marriage. But we must wait."

"Dinah," said Adam mournfully, "you can't love me so well as I love you,
else you'd have no doubts. But it's natural you shouldn't, for I'm not
so good as you. I can't doubt it's right for me to love the best thing
God's ever given me to know."

"Nay, Adam. It seems to me that my love for you is not weak, for my
heart waits on your words and looks, almost as a little child waits on
the help and tenderness of the strong on whom it depends. If the thought
of you took slight hold of me, I should not fear that it would be an
idol in the temple. But you will strengthen me--you will not hinder me
in seeking to obey to the uttermost."

"Let us go out into the sunshine, Dinah, and walk together. I'll speak
no word to disturb you."

They went out and walked towards the fields, where they would meet the
family coming from church. Adam said, "Take my arm, Dinah," and she took
it. That was the only change in their manner to each other since they
were last walking together. But no sadness in the prospect of her going
away--in the uncertainty of the issue--could rob the sweetness from
Adam's sense that Dinah loved him. He thought he would stay at the Hall
Farm all that evening. He would be near her as long as he could.

"Hey-day! There's Adam along wi' Dinah," said Mr. Poyser, as he opened
the far gate into the Home Close. "I couldna think how he happened away
from church. Why," added good Martin, after a moment's pause, "what dost
think has just jumped into my head?"

"Summat as hadna far to jump, for it's just under our nose. You mean as
Adam's fond o' Dinah."

"Aye! hast ever had any notion of it before?"

"To be sure I have," said Mrs. Poyser, who always declined, if possible,
to be taken by surprise. "I'm not one o' those as can see the cat i' the
dairy an' wonder what she's come after."

"Thee never saidst a word to me about it."

"Well, I aren't like a bird-clapper, forced to make a rattle when the
wind blows on me. I can keep my own counsel when there's no good i'
speaking."

"But Dinah 'll ha' none o' him. Dost think she will?"

"Nay," said Mrs. Poyser, not sufficiently on her guard against a
possible surprise, "she'll never marry anybody, if he isn't a Methodist
and a cripple."

"It 'ud ha' been a pretty thing though for 'em t' marry," said Martin,
turning his head on one side, as if in pleased contemplation of his new
idea. "Thee'dst ha' liked it too, wouldstna?"

"Ah! I should. I should ha' been sure of her then, as she wouldn't
go away from me to Snowfield, welly thirty mile off, and me not got a
creatur to look to, only neighbours, as are no kin to me, an' most of
'em women as I'd be ashamed to show my face, if my dairy things war like
their'n. There may well be streaky butter i' the market. An' I should be
glad to see the poor thing settled like a Christian woman, with a
house of her own over her head; and we'd stock her well wi' linen and
feathers, for I love her next to my own children. An' she makes one feel
safer when she's i' the house, for she's like the driven snow: anybody
might sin for two as had her at their elbow."

"Dinah," said Tommy, running forward to meet her, "mother says you'll
never marry anybody but a Methodist cripple. What a silly you must be!"
a comment which Tommy followed up by seizing Dinah with both arms, and
dancing along by her side with incommodious fondness.

"Why, Adam, we missed you i' the singing to-day," said Mr. Poyser. "How
was it?"

"I wanted to see Dinah--she's going away so soon," said Adam.

"Ah, lad! Can you persuade her to stop somehow? Find her a good husband
somewhere i' the parish. If you'll do that, we'll forgive you for
missing church. But, anyway, she isna going before the harvest supper
o' Wednesday, and you must come then. There's Bartle Massey comin', an'
happen Craig. You'll be sure an' come, now, at seven? The missis wunna
have it a bit later."

"Aye," said Adam, "I'll come if I can. But I can't often say what I'll
do beforehand, for the work often holds me longer than I expect. You'll
stay till the end o' the week, Dinah?"

"Yes, yes!" said Mr. Poyser. "We'll have no nay."

"She's no call to be in a hurry," observed Mrs. Poyser. "Scarceness
o' victual 'ull keep: there's no need to be hasty wi' the cooking. An'
scarceness is what there's the biggest stock of i' that country."

Dinah smiled, but gave no promise to stay, and they talked of other
things through the rest of the walk, lingering in the sunshine to look
at the great flock of geese grazing, at the new corn-ricks, and at the
surprising abundance of fruit on the old pear-tree; Nancy and Molly
having already hastened home, side by side, each holding, carefully
wrapped in her pocket-handkerchief, a prayer-book, in which she could
read little beyond the large letters and the Amens.

Surely all other leisure is hurry compared with a sunny walk through the
fields from "afternoon church"--as such walks used to be in those old
leisurely times, when the boat, gliding sleepily along the canal, was
the newest locomotive wonder; when Sunday books had most of them old
brown-leather covers, and opened with remarkable precision always in one
place. Leisure is gone--gone where the spinning-wheels are gone, and the
pack-horses, and the slow waggons, and the pedlars, who brought bargains
to the door on sunny afternoons. Ingenious philosophers tell you,
perhaps, that the great work of the steam-engine is to create leisure
for mankind. Do not believe them: it only creates a vacuum for eager
thought to rush in. Even idleness is eager now--eager for amusement;
prone to excursion-trains, art museums, periodical literature, and
exciting novels; prone even to scientific theorizing and cursory peeps
through microscopes. Old Leisure was quite a different personage. He
only read one newspaper, innocent of leaders, and was free from
that periodicity of sensations which we call post-time. He was a
contemplative, rather stout gentleman, of excellent digestion; of quiet
perceptions, undiseased by hypothesis; happy in his inability to know
the causes of things, preferring the things themselves. He lived chiefly
in the country, among pleasant seats and homesteads, and was fond of
sauntering by the fruit-tree wall and scenting the apricots when they
were warmed by the morning sunshine, or of sheltering himself under
the orchard boughs at noon, when the summer pears were falling. He knew
nothing of weekday services, and thought none the worse of the Sunday
sermon if it allowed him to sleep from the text to the blessing; liking
the afternoon service best, because the prayers were the shortest,
and not ashamed to say so; for he had an easy, jolly conscience,
broad-backed like himself, and able to carry a great deal of beer or
port-wine, not being made squeamish by doubts and qualms and lofty
aspirations. Life was not a task to him, but a sinecure. He fingered the
guineas in his pocket, and ate his dinners, and slept the sleep of the
irresponsible, for had he not kept up his character by going to church
on the Sunday afternoons?

Fine old Leisure! Do not be severe upon him, and judge him by our modern
standard. He never went to Exeter Hall, or heard a popular preacher, or
read Tracts for the Times or Sartor Resartus.

Q: Can you write an appropriate summary of the above paragraphs?
A:

completion: Adam goes to Hall Farm while the others are at church so he can see Dinah alone. After he confesses his love for her, she admits that she loves him too. When he proposes, however, she says that she cannot marry him because she does not think it is God's will. Her fear is that if she lives with him, she will cease to feel compassion for the poor and will not be able to help those in need. Adam argues that she will be able to help others better because she will be more filled with love, just as a worker can do better work with more knowledge. They agree that she will go back to Snowfield for a time to see whether God's will becomes clearer to her. Adam and Dinah walk out together in the fields, and they encounter the Poysers. Mr. Poyser tells Mrs. Poyser that he believes Adam loves Dinah. Mrs. Poyser claims to have known this all along but says she does not believe Dinah will marry him. Everyone urges Adam to come to the Harvest Supper and Dinah to stay at least that long. Adam promises to come, but Dinah does not promise to stay


prompt:
Chapter: As Adam was going homeward, on Wednesday evening, in the six o'clock
sunlight, he saw in the distance the last load of barley winding its way
towards the yard-gate of the Hall Farm, and heard the chant of "Harvest
Home!" rising and sinking like a wave. Fainter and fainter, and more
musical through the growing distance, the falling dying sound still
reached him, as he neared the Willow Brook. The low westering sun shone
right on the shoulders of the old Binton Hills, turning the unconscious
sheep into bright spots of light; shone on the windows of the cottage
too, and made them a-flame with a glory beyond that of amber or
amethyst. It was enough to make Adam feel that he was in a great temple,
and that the distant chant was a sacred song.

"It's wonderful," he thought, "how that sound goes to one's heart almost
like a funeral bell, for all it tells one o' the joyfullest time o' the
year, and the time when men are mostly the thankfullest. I suppose it's
a bit hard to us to think anything's over and gone in our lives; and
there's a parting at the root of all our joys. It's like what I feel
about Dinah. I should never ha' come to know that her love 'ud be the
greatest o' blessings to me, if what I counted a blessing hadn't been
wrenched and torn away from me, and left me with a greater need, so as I
could crave and hunger for a greater and a better comfort."

He expected to see Dinah again this evening, and get leave to accompany
her as far as Oakbourne; and then he would ask her to fix some time when
he might go to Snowfield, and learn whether the last best hope that had
been born to him must be resigned like the rest. The work he had to do
at home, besides putting on his best clothes, made it seven before he
was on his way again to the Hall Farm, and it was questionable whether,
with his longest and quickest strides, he should be there in time even
for the roast beef, which came after the plum pudding, for Mrs. Poyser's
supper would be punctual.

Great was the clatter of knives and pewter plates and tin cans when Adam
entered the house, but there was no hum of voices to this accompaniment:
the eating of excellent roast beef, provided free of expense, was too
serious a business to those good farm-labourers to be performed with
a divided attention, even if they had had anything to say to each
other--which they had not. And Mr. Poyser, at the head of the table, was
too busy with his carving to listen to Bartle Massey's or Mr. Craig's
ready talk.

"Here, Adam," said Mrs. Poyser, who was standing and looking on to see
that Molly and Nancy did their duty as waiters, "here's a place kept for
you between Mr. Massey and the boys. It's a poor tale you couldn't come
to see the pudding when it was whole."

Adam looked anxiously round for a fourth woman's figure, but Dinah
was not there. He was almost afraid of asking about her; besides, his
attention was claimed by greetings, and there remained the hope that
Dinah was in the house, though perhaps disinclined to festivities on the
eve of her departure.

It was a goodly sight--that table, with Martin Poyser's round
good-humoured face and large person at the head of it helping his
servants to the fragrant roast beef and pleased when the empty plates
came again. Martin, though usually blest with a good appetite, really
forgot to finish his own beef to-night--it was so pleasant to him to
look on in the intervals of carving and see how the others enjoyed their
supper; for were they not men who, on all the days of the year except
Christmas Day and Sundays, ate their cold dinner, in a makeshift manner,
under the hedgerows, and drank their beer out of wooden bottles--with
relish certainly, but with their mouths towards the zenith, after a
fashion more endurable to ducks than to human bipeds. Martin Poyser had
some faint conception of the flavour such men must find in hot roast
beef and fresh-drawn ale. He held his head on one side and screwed
up his mouth, as he nudged Bartle Massey, and watched half-witted Tom
Tholer, otherwise known as "Tom Saft," receiving his second plateful of
beef. A grin of delight broke over Tom's face as the plate was set down
before him, between his knife and fork, which he held erect, as if
they had been sacred tapers. But the delight was too strong to continue
smouldering in a grin--it burst out the next instant in a long-drawn
"haw, haw!" followed by a sudden collapse into utter gravity, as the
knife and fork darted down on the prey. Martin Poyser's large person
shook with his silent unctuous laugh. He turned towards Mrs. Poyser to
see if she too had been observant of Tom, and the eyes of husband and
wife met in a glance of good-natured amusement.

"Tom Saft" was a great favourite on the farm, where he played the part
of the old jester, and made up for his practical deficiencies by his
success in repartee. His hits, I imagine, were those of the flail, which
falls quite at random, but nevertheless smashes an insect now and then.
They were much quoted at sheep-shearing and haymaking times, but I
refrain from recording them here, lest Tom's wit should prove to be
like that of many other bygone jesters eminent in their day--rather of a
temporary nature, not dealing with the deeper and more lasting relations
of things.

Tom excepted, Martin Poyser had some pride in his servants and
labourers, thinking with satisfaction that they were the best worth
their pay of any set on the estate. There was Kester Bale, for example
(Beale, probably, if the truth were known, but he was called Bale, and
was not conscious of any claim to a fifth letter), the old man with the
close leather cap and the network of wrinkles on his sun-browned face.
Was there any man in Loamshire who knew better the "natur" of all
farming work? He was one of those invaluable labourers who can not only
turn their hand to everything, but excel in everything they turn their
hand to. It is true Kester's knees were much bent outward by this time,
and he walked with a perpetual curtsy, as if he were among the most
reverent of men. And so he was; but I am obliged to admit that the
object of his reverence was his own skill, towards which he performed
some rather affecting acts of worship. He always thatched the ricks--for
if anything were his forte more than another, it was thatching--and when
the last touch had been put to the last beehive rick, Kester, whose home
lay at some distance from the farm, would take a walk to the rick-yard
in his best clothes on a Sunday morning and stand in the lane, at a due
distance, to contemplate his own thatching, walking about to get each
rick from the proper point of view. As he curtsied along, with his eyes
upturned to the straw knobs imitative of golden globes at the summits
of the beehive ricks, which indeed were gold of the best sort, you might
have imagined him to be engaged in some pagan act of adoration.
Kester was an old bachelor and reputed to have stockings full of coin,
concerning which his master cracked a joke with him every pay-night:
not a new unseasoned joke, but a good old one, that had been tried
many times before and had worn well. "Th' young measter's a merry mon,"
Kester frequently remarked; for having begun his career by frightening
away the crows under the last Martin Poyser but one, he could never
cease to account the reigning Martin a young master. I am not ashamed
of commemorating old Kester. You and I are indebted to the hard hands of
such men--hands that have long ago mingled with the soil they tilled so
faithfully, thriftily making the best they could of the earth's fruits,
and receiving the smallest share as their own wages.

Then, at the end of the table, opposite his master, there was Alick, the
shepherd and head-man, with the ruddy face and broad shoulders, not on
the best terms with old Kester; indeed, their intercourse was confined
to an occasional snarl, for though they probably differed little
concerning hedging and ditching and the treatment of ewes, there was a
profound difference of opinion between them as to their own respective
merits. When Tityrus and Meliboeus happen to be on the same farm, they
are not sentimentally polite to each other. Alick, indeed, was not by
any means a honeyed man. His speech had usually something of a snarl
in it, and his broad-shouldered aspect something of the bull-dog
expression--"Don't you meddle with me, and I won't meddle with you." But
he was honest even to the splitting of an oat-grain rather than he
would take beyond his acknowledged share, and as "close-fisted" with
his master's property as if it had been his own--throwing very small
handfuls of damaged barley to the chickens, because a large handful
affected his imagination painfully with a sense of profusion.
Good-tempered Tim, the waggoner, who loved his horses, had his grudge
against Alick in the matter of corn. They rarely spoke to each other,
and never looked at each other, even over their dish of cold potatoes;
but then, as this was their usual mode of behaviour towards all mankind,
it would be an unsafe conclusion that they had more than transient fits
of unfriendliness. The bucolic character at Hayslope, you perceive,
was not of that entirely genial, merry, broad-grinning sort, apparently
observed in most districts visited by artists. The mild radiance of a
smile was a rare sight on a field-labourer's face, and there was seldom
any gradation between bovine gravity and a laugh. Nor was every labourer
so honest as our friend Alick. At this very table, among Mr. Poyser's
men, there is that big Ben Tholoway, a very powerful thresher, but
detected more than once in carrying away his master's corn in his
pockets--an action which, as Ben was not a philosopher, could hardly be
ascribed to absence of mind. However, his master had forgiven him, and
continued to employ him, for the Tholoways had lived on the Common time
out of mind, and had always worked for the Poysers. And on the whole, I
daresay, society was not much the worse because Ben had not six months
of it at the treadmill, for his views of depredation were narrow, and
the House of Correction might have enlarged them. As it was, Ben ate his
roast beef to-night with a serene sense of having stolen nothing more
than a few peas and beans as seed for his garden since the last harvest
supper, and felt warranted in thinking that Alick's suspicious eye, for
ever upon him, was an injury to his innocence.

But NOW the roast beef was finished and the cloth was drawn, leaving
a fair large deal table for the bright drinking-cans, and the foaming
brown jugs, and the bright brass candlesticks, pleasant to behold. NOW,
the great ceremony of the evening was to begin--the harvest-song,
in which every man must join. He might be in tune, if he liked to be
singular, but he must not sit with closed lips. The movement was obliged
to be in triple time; the rest was ad libitum.

As to the origin of this song--whether it came in its actual state from
the brain of a single rhapsodist, or was gradually perfected by a school
or succession of rhapsodists, I am ignorant. There is a stamp of
unity, of individual genius upon it, which inclines me to the former
hypothesis, though I am not blind to the consideration that this unity
may rather have arisen from that consensus of many minds which was a
condition of primitive thought, foreign to our modern consciousness.
Some will perhaps think that they detect in the first quatrain
an indication of a lost line, which later rhapsodists, failing in
imaginative vigour, have supplied by the feeble device of iteration.
Others, however, may rather maintain that this very iteration is an
original felicity, to which none but the most prosaic minds can be
insensible.

The ceremony connected with the song was a drinking ceremony. (That
is perhaps a painful fact, but then, you know, we cannot reform our
forefathers.) During the first and second quatrain, sung decidedly
forte, no can was filled.

     Here's a health unto our master,
     The founder of the feast;
     Here's a health unto our master
     And to our mistress!

     And may his doings prosper,
     Whate'er he takes in hand,
     For we are all his servants,
     And are at his command.

But now, immediately before the third quatrain or chorus, sung
fortissimo, with emphatic raps of the table, which gave the effect of
cymbals and drum together, Alick's can was filled, and he was bound to
empty it before the chorus ceased.

     Then drink, boys, drink!
     And see ye do not spill,
     For if ye do, ye shall drink two,
     For 'tis our master's will.

When Alick had gone successfully through this test of steady-handed
manliness, it was the turn of old Kester, at his right hand--and so on,
till every man had drunk his initiatory pint under the stimulus of the
chorus. Tom Saft--the rogue--took care to spill a little by accident;
but Mrs. Poyser (too officiously, Tom thought) interfered to prevent the
exaction of the penalty.

To any listener outside the door it would have been the reverse of
obvious why the "Drink, boys, drink!" should have such an immediate and
often-repeated encore; but once entered, he would have seen that all
faces were at present sober, and most of them serious--it was the
regular and respectable thing for those excellent farm-labourers to do,
as much as for elegant ladies and gentlemen to smirk and bow over their
wine-glasses. Bartle Massey, whose ears were rather sensitive, had
gone out to see what sort of evening it was at an early stage in the
ceremony, and had not finished his contemplation until a silence of
five minutes declared that "Drink, boys, drink!" was not likely to
begin again for the next twelvemonth. Much to the regret of the boys
and Totty: on them the stillness fell rather flat, after that glorious
thumping of the table, towards which Totty, seated on her father's knee,
contributed with her small might and small fist.

When Bartle re-entered, however, there appeared to be a general desire
for solo music after the choral. Nancy declared that Tim the waggoner
knew a song and was "allays singing like a lark i' the stable,"
whereupon Mr. Poyser said encouragingly, "Come, Tim, lad, let's hear
it." Tim looked sheepish, tucked down his head, and said he couldn't
sing, but this encouraging invitation of the master's was echoed all
round the table. It was a conversational opportunity: everybody could
say, "Come, Tim," except Alick, who never relaxed into the frivolity of
unnecessary speech. At last, Tim's next neighbour, Ben Tholoway, began
to give emphasis to his speech by nudges, at which Tim, growing rather
savage, said, "Let me alooan, will ye? Else I'll ma' ye sing a toon ye
wonna like." A good-tempered waggoner's patience has limits, and Tim was
not to be urged further.

"Well, then, David, ye're the lad to sing," said Ben, willing to show
that he was not discomfited by this check. "Sing 'My loove's a roos
wi'out a thorn.'"

The amatory David was a young man of an unconscious abstracted
expression, which was due probably to a squint of superior intensity
rather than to any mental characteristic; for he was not indifferent to
Ben's invitation, but blushed and laughed and rubbed his sleeve over his
mouth in a way that was regarded as a symptom of yielding. And for some
time the company appeared to be much in earnest about the desire to hear
David's song. But in vain. The lyricism of the evening was in the cellar
at present, and was not to be drawn from that retreat just yet.

Meanwhile the conversation at the head of the table had taken a
political turn. Mr. Craig was not above talking politics occasionally,
though he piqued himself rather on a wise insight than on specific
information. He saw so far beyond the mere facts of a case that really
it was superfluous to know them.

"I'm no reader o' the paper myself," he observed to-night, as he filled
his pipe, "though I might read it fast enough if I liked, for there's
Miss Lyddy has 'em and 's done with 'em i' no time. But there's Mills,
now, sits i' the chimney-corner and reads the paper pretty nigh
from morning to night, and when he's got to th' end on't he's more
addle-headed than he was at the beginning. He's full o' this peace now,
as they talk on; he's been reading and reading, and thinks he's got to
the bottom on't. 'Why, Lor' bless you, Mills,' says I, 'you see no more
into this thing nor you can see into the middle of a potato. I'll tell
you what it is: you think it'll be a fine thing for the country. And I'm
not again' it--mark my words--I'm not again' it. But it's my opinion as
there's them at the head o' this country as are worse enemies to us
nor Bony and all the mounseers he's got at 's back; for as for the
mounseers, you may skewer half-a-dozen of 'em at once as if they war
frogs.'"

"Aye, aye," said Martin Poyser, listening with an air of much
intelligence and edification, "they ne'er ate a bit o' beef i' their
lives. Mostly sallet, I reckon."

"And says I to Mills," continued Mr. Craig, "'Will you try to make me
believe as furriners like them can do us half th' harm them ministers
do with their bad government? If King George 'ud turn 'em all away and
govern by himself, he'd see everything righted. He might take on Billy
Pitt again if he liked; but I don't see myself what we want wi' anybody
besides King and Parliament. It's that nest o' ministers does the
mischief, I tell you.'"

"Ah, it's fine talking," observed Mrs. Poyser, who was now seated near
her husband, with Totty on her lap--"it's fine talking. It's hard work
to tell which is Old Harry when everybody's got boots on."

"As for this peace," said Mr. Poyser, turning his head on one side in
a dubitative manner and giving a precautionary puff to his pipe between
each sentence, "I don't know. Th' war's a fine thing for the country,
an' how'll you keep up prices wi'out it? An' them French are a wicked
sort o' folks, by what I can make out. What can you do better nor fight
'em?"

"Ye're partly right there, Poyser," said Mr. Craig, "but I'm not again'
the peace--to make a holiday for a bit. We can break it when we like,
an' I'm in no fear o' Bony, for all they talk so much o' his cliverness.
That's what I says to Mills this morning. Lor' bless you, he sees no
more through Bony!...why, I put him up to more in three minutes than he
gets from's paper all the year round. Says I, 'Am I a gardener as knows
his business, or arn't I, Mills? Answer me that.' 'To be sure y' are,
Craig,' says he--he's not a bad fellow, Mills isn't, for a butler, but
weak i' the head. 'Well,' says I, 'you talk o' Bony's cliverness; would
it be any use my being a first-rate gardener if I'd got nought but a
quagmire to work on?' 'No,' says he. 'Well,' I says, 'that's just
what it is wi' Bony. I'll not deny but he may be a bit cliver--he's
no Frenchman born, as I understand--but what's he got at's back but
mounseers?'"

Mr. Craig paused a moment with an emphatic stare after this triumphant
specimen of Socratic argument, and then added, thumping the table rather
fiercely, "Why, it's a sure thing--and there's them 'ull bear witness
to't--as i' one regiment where there was one man a-missing, they put
the regimentals on a big monkey, and they fit him as the shell fits the
walnut, and you couldn't tell the monkey from the mounseers!"

"Ah! Think o' that, now!" said Mr. Poyser, impressed at once with the
political bearings of the fact and with its striking interest as an
anecdote in natural history.

"Come, Craig," said Adam, "that's a little too strong. You don't believe
that. It's all nonsense about the French being such poor sticks. Mr.
Irwine's seen 'em in their own country, and he says they've plenty o'
fine fellows among 'em. And as for knowledge, and contrivances, and
manufactures, there's a many things as we're a fine sight behind 'em in.
It's poor foolishness to run down your enemies. Why, Nelson and the
rest of 'em 'ud have no merit i' beating 'em, if they were such offal as
folks pretend."

Mr. Poyser looked doubtfully at Mr. Craig, puzzled by this opposition of
authorities. Mr. Irwine's testimony was not to be disputed; but, on the
other hand, Craig was a knowing fellow, and his view was less startling.
Martin had never "heard tell" of the French being good for much. Mr.
Craig had found no answer but such as was implied in taking a long
draught of ale and then looking down fixedly at the proportions of his
own leg, which he turned a little outward for that purpose, when Bartle
Massey returned from the fireplace, where he had been smoking his
first pipe in quiet, and broke the silence by saying, as he thrust his
forefinger into the canister, "Why, Adam, how happened you not to be at
church on Sunday? Answer me that, you rascal. The anthem went limping
without you. Are you going to disgrace your schoolmaster in his old
age?"

"No, Mr. Massey," said Adam. "Mr. and Mrs. Poyser can tell you where I
was. I was in no bad company."

"She's gone, Adam--gone to Snowfield," said Mr. Poyser, reminded of
Dinah for the first time this evening. "I thought you'd ha' persuaded
her better. Nought 'ud hold her, but she must go yesterday forenoon. The
missis has hardly got over it. I thought she'd ha' no sperrit for th'
harvest supper."

Mrs. Poyser had thought of Dinah several times since Adam had come in,
but she had had "no heart" to mention the bad news.

"What!" said Bartle, with an air of disgust. "Was there a woman
concerned? Then I give you up, Adam."

"But it's a woman you'n spoke well on, Bartle," said Mr. Poyser. "Come
now, you canna draw back; you said once as women wouldna ha' been a bad
invention if they'd all been like Dinah."

"I meant her voice, man--I meant her voice, that was all," said Bartle.
"I can bear to hear her speak without wanting to put wool in my ears. As
for other things, I daresay she's like the rest o' the women--thinks
two and two 'll come to make five, if she cries and bothers enough about
it."

"Aye, aye!" said Mrs. Poyser; "one 'ud think, an' hear some folks talk,
as the men war 'cute enough to count the corns in a bag o' wheat wi'
only smelling at it. They can see through a barn-door, they can. Perhaps
that's the reason THEY can see so little o' this side on't."

Martin Poyser shook with delighted laughter and winked at Adam, as much
as to say the schoolmaster was in for it now.

"Ah!" said Bartle sneeringly, "the women are quick enough--they're quick
enough. They know the rights of a story before they hear it, and can
tell a man what his thoughts are before he knows 'em himself."

"Like enough," said Mrs. Poyser, "for the men are mostly so slow, their
thoughts overrun 'em, an' they can only catch 'em by the tail. I can
count a stocking-top while a man's getting's tongue ready an' when he
outs wi' his speech at last, there's little broth to be made on't. It's
your dead chicks take the longest hatchin'. Howiver, I'm not denyin' the
women are foolish: God Almighty made 'em to match the men."

"Match!" said Bartle. "Aye, as vinegar matches one's teeth. If a man
says a word, his wife 'll match it with a contradiction; if he's a
mind for hot meat, his wife 'll match it with cold bacon; if he laughs,
she'll match him with whimpering. She's such a match as the horse-fly
is to th' horse: she's got the right venom to sting him with--the right
venom to sting him with."

"Yes," said Mrs. Poyser, "I know what the men like--a poor soft, as 'ud
simper at 'em like the picture o' the sun, whether they did right or
wrong, an' say thank you for a kick, an' pretend she didna know which
end she stood uppermost, till her husband told her. That's what a man
wants in a wife, mostly; he wants to make sure o' one fool as 'ull tell
him he's wise. But there's some men can do wi'out that--they think so
much o' themselves a'ready. An' that's how it is there's old bachelors."

"Come, Craig," said Mr. Poyser jocosely, "you mun get married pretty
quick, else you'll be set down for an old bachelor; an' you see what the
women 'ull think on you."

"Well," said Mr. Craig, willing to conciliate Mrs. Poyser and setting a
high value on his own compliments, "I like a cleverish woman--a woman o'
sperrit--a managing woman."

"You're out there, Craig," said Bartle, dryly; "you're out there. You
judge o' your garden-stuff on a better plan than that. You pick the
things for what they can excel in--for what they can excel in. You don't
value your peas for their roots, or your carrots for their flowers. Now,
that's the way you should choose women. Their cleverness 'll never come
to much--never come to much--but they make excellent simpletons, ripe
and strong-flavoured."

"What dost say to that?" said Mr. Poyser, throwing himself back and
looking merrily at his wife.

"Say!" answered Mrs. Poyser, with dangerous fire kindling in her
eye. "Why, I say as some folks' tongues are like the clocks as run
on strikin', not to tell you the time o' the day, but because there's
summat wrong i' their own inside..."

Mrs. Poyser would probably have brought her rejoinder to a further
climax, if every one's attention had not at this moment been called to
the other end of the table, where the lyricism, which had at first only
manifested itself by David's sotto voce performance of "My love's a rose
without a thorn," had gradually assumed a rather deafening and complex
character. Tim, thinking slightly of David's vocalization, was impelled
to supersede that feeble buzz by a spirited commencement of "Three Merry
Mowers," but David was not to be put down so easily, and showed himself
capable of a copious crescendo, which was rendering it doubtful whether
the rose would not predominate over the mowers, when old Kester, with
an entirely unmoved and immovable aspect, suddenly set up a quavering
treble--as if he had been an alarum, and the time was come for him to go
off.

The company at Alick's end of the table took this form of vocal
entertainment very much as a matter of course, being free from musical
prejudices; but Bartle Massey laid down his pipe and put his fingers in
his ears; and Adam, who had been longing to go ever since he had heard
Dinah was not in the house, rose and said he must bid good-night.

"I'll go with you, lad," said Bartle; "I'll go with you before my ears
are split."

"I'll go round by the Common and see you home, if you like, Mr. Massey,"
said Adam.

"Aye, aye!" said Bartle; "then we can have a bit o' talk together. I
never get hold of you now."

"Eh! It's a pity but you'd sit it out," said Martin Poyser. "They'll all
go soon, for th' missis niver lets 'em stay past ten."

But Adam was resolute, so the good-nights were said, and the two friends
turned out on their starlight walk together.

"There's that poor fool, Vixen, whimpering for me at home," said Bartle.
"I can never bring her here with me for fear she should be struck with
Mrs. Poyser's eye, and the poor bitch might go limping for ever after."

"I've never any need to drive Gyp back," said Adam, laughing. "He always
turns back of his own head when he finds out I'm coming here."

"Aye, aye," said Bartle. "A terrible woman!--made of needles, made of
needles. But I stick to Martin--I shall always stick to Martin. And
he likes the needles, God help him! He's a cushion made on purpose for
'em."

"But she's a downright good-natur'd woman, for all that," said Adam,
"and as true as the daylight. She's a bit cross wi' the dogs when they
offer to come in th' house, but if they depended on her, she'd take care
and have 'em well fed. If her tongue's keen, her heart's tender: I've
seen that in times o' trouble. She's one o' those women as are better
than their word."

"Well, well," said Bartle, "I don't say th' apple isn't sound at the
core; but it sets my teeth on edge--it sets my teeth on edge."

Q: Can you write an appropriate summary of the above paragraphs?
A:

completion: Adam goes to the Harvest Supper at the Poysers. The Poysers have invited all their workers and others as well to come have a sumptuous meal and ale. Mr. Poyser is filled with good will as he watches the workers eat. Together, the table sings the harvest song, a drinking song with a set refrain in which all the other words are made up by each singer. The workers have their usual quarrels, but mostly everyone is happy and satisfied. Adam anxiously looks for Dinah, but she has already gone back to Snowfield. As Adam walks Mr. Massey home, they talk about Mrs. Poyser. Both agree she is a good spirited woman, for all her sharp tongue


prompt:
Chapter: ADAM understood Dinah's haste to go away, and drew hope rather than
discouragement from it. She was fearful lest the strength of her feeling
towards him should hinder her from waiting and listening faithfully for
the ultimate guiding voice from within.

"I wish I'd asked her to write to me, though," he thought. "And yet even
that might disturb her a bit, perhaps. She wants to be quite quiet
in her old way for a while. And I've no right to be impatient and
interrupting her with my wishes. She's told me what her mind is,
and she's not a woman to say one thing and mean another. I'll wait
patiently."

That was Adam's wise resolution, and it throve excellently for the first
two or three weeks on the nourishment it got from the remembrance of
Dinah's confession that Sunday afternoon. There is a wonderful amount
of sustenance in the first few words of love. But towards the middle
of October the resolution began to dwindle perceptibly, and showed
dangerous symptoms of exhaustion. The weeks were unusually long: Dinah
must surely have had more than enough time to make up her mind. Let a
woman say what she will after she has once told a man that she loves
him, he is a little too flushed and exalted with that first draught she
offers him to care much about the taste of the second. He treads the
earth with a very elastic step as he walks away from her, and makes
light of all difficulties. But that sort of glow dies out: memory gets
sadly diluted with time, and is not strong enough to revive us. Adam
was no longer so confident as he had been. He began to fear that perhaps
Dinah's old life would have too strong a grasp upon her for any new
feeling to triumph. If she had not felt this, she would surely have
written to him to give him some comfort; but it appeared that she held
it right to discourage him. As Adam's confidence waned, his patience
waned with it, and he thought he must write himself. He must ask Dinah
not to leave him in painful doubt longer than was needful. He sat up
late one night to write her a letter, but the next morning he burnt it,
afraid of its effect. It would be worse to have a discouraging answer
by letter than from her own lips, for her presence reconciled him to her
will.

You perceive how it was: Adam was hungering for the sight of Dinah, and
when that sort of hunger reaches a certain stage, a lover is likely to
still it though he may have to put his future in pawn.

But what harm could he do by going to Snowfield? Dinah could not be
displeased with him for it. She had not forbidden him to go. She must
surely expect that he would go before long. By the second Sunday in
October this view of the case had become so clear to Adam that he was
already on his way to Snowfield, on horseback this time, for his hours
were precious now, and he had borrowed Jonathan Burge's good nag for the
journey.

What keen memories went along the road with him! He had often been to
Oakbourne and back since that first journey to Snowfield, but beyond
Oakbourne the greystone walls, the broken country, the meagre trees,
seemed to be telling him afresh the story of that painful past which he
knew so well by heart. But no story is the same to us after a lapse of
time--or rather, we who read it are no longer the same interpreters--and
Adam this morning brought with him new thoughts through that grey
country, thoughts which gave an altered significance to its story of the
past.

That is a base and selfish, even a blasphemous, spirit which rejoices
and is thankful over the past evil that has blighted or crushed another,
because it has been made a source of unforeseen good to ourselves. Adam
could never cease to mourn over that mystery of human sorrow which had
been brought so close to him; he could never thank God for another's
misery. And if I were capable of that narrow-sighted joy in Adam's
behalf, I should still know he was not the man to feel it for himself.
He would have shaken his head at such a sentiment and said, "Evil's
evil, and sorrow's sorrow, and you can't alter it's natur by wrapping
it up in other words. Other folks were not created for my sake, that I
should think all square when things turn out well for me."

But it is not ignoble to feel that the fuller life which a sad
experience has brought us is worth our own personal share of pain.
Surely it is not possible to feel otherwise, any more than it would be
possible for a man with cataract to regret the painful process by which
his dim blurred sight of men as trees walking had been exchanged for
clear outline and effulgent day. The growth of higher feeling within
us is like the growth of faculty, bringing with it a sense of added
strength. We can no more wish to return to a narrower sympathy than
a painter or a musician can wish to return to his cruder manner, or a
philosopher to his less complete formula.

Something like this sense of enlarged being was in Adam's mind this
Sunday morning, as he rode along in vivid recollection of the past. His
feeling towards Dinah, the hope of passing his life with her, had been
the distant unseen point towards which that hard journey from Snowfield
eighteen months ago had been leading him. Tender and deep as his love
for Hetty had been--so deep that the roots of it would never be torn
away--his love for Dinah was better and more precious to him, for it
was the outgrowth of that fuller life which had come to him from his
acquaintance with deep sorrow. "It's like as if it was a new strength to
me," he said to himself, "to love her and know as she loves me. I shall
look t' her to help me to see things right. For she's better than I
am--there's less o' self in her, and pride. And it's a feeling as gives
you a sort o' liberty, as if you could walk more fearless, when you've
more trust in another than y' have in yourself. I've always been
thinking I knew better than them as belonged to me, and that's a poor
sort o' life, when you can't look to them nearest to you t' help you
with a bit better thought than what you've got inside you a'ready."

It was more than two o'clock in the afternoon when Adam came in sight of
the grey town on the hill-side and looked searchingly towards the green
valley below, for the first glimpse of the old thatched roof near the
ugly red mill. The scene looked less harsh in the soft October sunshine
than it had in the eager time of early spring, and the one grand charm
it possessed in common with all wide-stretching woodless regions--that
it filled you with a new consciousness of the overarching sky--had a
milder, more soothing influence than usual, on this almost cloudless
day. Adam's doubts and fears melted under this influence as the delicate
weblike clouds had gradually melted away into the clear blue above him.
He seemed to see Dinah's gentle face assuring him, with its looks alone,
of all he longed to know.

He did not expect Dinah to be at home at this hour, but he got down from
his horse and tied it at the little gate, that he might ask where she
was gone to-day. He had set his mind on following her and bringing her
home. She was gone to Sloman's End, a hamlet about three miles off, over
the hill, the old woman told him--had set off directly after morning
chapel, to preach in a cottage there, as her habit was. Anybody at the
town would tell him the way to Sloman's End. So Adam got on his horse
again and rode to the town, putting up at the old inn and taking a
hasty dinner there in the company of the too chatty landlord, from whose
friendly questions and reminiscences he was glad to escape as soon as
possible and set out towards Sloman's End. With all his haste it was
nearly four o'clock before he could set off, and he thought that as
Dinah had gone so early, she would perhaps already be near returning.
The little, grey, desolate-looking hamlet, unscreened by sheltering
trees, lay in sight long before he reached it, and as he came near he
could hear the sound of voices singing a hymn. "Perhaps that's the last
hymn before they come away," Adam thought. "I'll walk back a bit and
turn again to meet her, farther off the village." He walked back till he
got nearly to the top of the hill again, and seated himself on a loose
stone, against the low wall, to watch till he should see the little
black figure leaving the hamlet and winding up the hill. He chose
this spot, almost at the top of the hill, because it was away from all
eyes--no house, no cattle, not even a nibbling sheep near--no presence
but the still lights and shadows and the great embracing sky.

She was much longer coming than he expected. He waited an hour at
least watching for her and thinking of her, while the afternoon shadows
lengthened and the light grew softer. At last he saw the little black
figure coming from between the grey houses and gradually approaching the
foot of the hill. Slowly, Adam thought, but Dinah was really walking at
her usual pace, with a light quiet step. Now she was beginning to wind
along the path up the hill, but Adam would not move yet; he would not
meet her too soon; he had set his heart on meeting her in this assured
loneliness. And now he began to fear lest he should startle her too
much. "Yet," he thought, "she's not one to be overstartled; she's always
so calm and quiet, as if she was prepared for anything."

What was she thinking of as she wound up the hill? Perhaps she had found
complete repose without him, and had ceased to feel any need of his
love. On the verge of a decision we all tremble: hope pauses with
fluttering wings.

But now at last she was very near, and Adam rose from the stone wall.
It happened that just as he walked forward, Dinah had paused and turned
round to look back at the village--who does not pause and look back in
mounting a hill? Adam was glad, for, with the fine instinct of a lover,
he felt that it would be best for her to hear his voice before she
saw him. He came within three paces of her and then said, "Dinah!" She
started without looking round, as if she connected the sound with no
place. "Dinah!" Adam said again. He knew quite well what was in her
mind. She was so accustomed to think of impressions as purely spiritual
monitions that she looked for no material visible accompaniment of the
voice.

But this second time she looked round. What a look of yearning love it
was that the mild grey eyes turned on the strong dark-eyed man! She did
not start again at the sight of him; she said nothing, but moved towards
him so that his arm could clasp her round.

And they walked on so in silence, while the warm tears fell. Adam was
content, and said nothing. It was Dinah who spoke first.

"Adam," she said, "it is the Divine Will. My soul is so knit to yours
that it is but a divided life I live without you. And this moment, now
you are with me, and I feel that our hearts are filled with the same
love. I have a fulness of strength to bear and do our heavenly Father's
Will that I had lost before."

Adam paused and looked into her sincere eyes.

"Then we'll never part any more, Dinah, till death parts us."

And they kissed each other with a deep joy.

What greater thing is there for two human souls than to feel that they
are joined for life--to strengthen each other in all labour, to rest on
each other in all sorrow, to minister to each other in all pain, to be
one with each other in silent unspeakable memories at the moment of the
last parting?

Q: Can you write an appropriate summary of the above paragraphs?
A:

completion: Adam cannot bear the suspense any longer, so he goes to Snowfield to find Dinah. As he rides, he remembers the trip he made to Snowfield to find Hetty, and it still makes him sad. He believes that Hetty's disgrace is a terrible, sorrowful event, but his love for Dinah is fuller because he has experienced that sorrow. Dinah is out preaching, but Adam follows her to the house where she is and waits on a nearby hill. When she walks by, he comes out from behind a hedge and softly speaks her name. She turns around and hugs him. As they both cry, Dinah tells him that it is God's will that she should marry him. They kiss


prompt:
Chapter: IN little more than a month after that meeting on the hill--on a rimy
morning in departing November--Adam and Dinah were married.

It was an event much thought of in the village. All Mr. Burge's men had
a holiday, and all Mr. Poyser's, and most of those who had a holiday
appeared in their best clothes at the wedding. I think there was hardly
an inhabitant of Hayslope specially mentioned in this history and still
resident in the parish on this November morning who was not either in
church to see Adam and Dinah married, or near the church door to greet
them as they came forth. Mrs. Irwine and her daughters were waiting at
the churchyard gates in their carriage (for they had a carriage now) to
shake hands with the bride and bridegroom and wish them well; and in the
absence of Miss Lydia Donnithorne at Bath, Mrs. Best, Mr. Mills, and
Mr. Craig had felt it incumbent on them to represent "the family" at the
Chase on the occasion. The churchyard walk was quite lined with familiar
faces, many of them faces that had first looked at Dinah when she
preached on the Green. And no wonder they showed this eager interest on
her marriage morning, for nothing like Dinah and the history which had
brought her and Adam Bede together had been known at Hayslope within the
memory of man.

Bessy Cranage, in her neatest cap and frock, was crying, though she did
not exactly know why; for, as her cousin Wiry Ben, who stood near her,
judiciously suggested, Dinah was not going away, and if Bessy was in low
spirits, the best thing for her to do was to follow Dinah's example and
marry an honest fellow who was ready to have her. Next to Bessy, just
within the church door, there were the Poyser children, peeping round
the corner of the pews to get a sight of the mysterious ceremony;
Totty's face wearing an unusual air of anxiety at the idea of seeing
cousin Dinah come back looking rather old, for in Totty's experience no
married people were young.

I envy them all the sight they had when the marriage was fairly ended
and Adam led Dinah out of church. She was not in black this morning,
for her Aunt Poyser would by no means allow such a risk of incurring bad
luck, and had herself made a present of the wedding dress, made all of
grey, though in the usual Quaker form, for on this point Dinah could not
give way. So the lily face looked out with sweet gravity from under
a grey Quaker bonnet, neither smiling nor blushing, but with lips
trembling a little under the weight of solemn feelings. Adam, as he
pressed her arm to his side, walked with his old erectness and his head
thrown rather backward as if to face all the world better. But it was
not because he was particularly proud this morning, as is the wont of
bridegrooms, for his happiness was of a kind that had little reference
to men's opinion of it. There was a tinge of sadness in his deep joy;
Dinah knew it, and did not feel aggrieved.

There were three other couples, following the bride and bridegroom:
first, Martin Poyser, looking as cheery as a bright fire on this rimy
morning, led quiet Mary Burge, the bridesmaid; then came Seth serenely
happy, with Mrs. Poyser on his arm; and last of all Bartle Massey, with
Lisbeth--Lisbeth in a new gown and bonnet, too busy with her pride in
her son and her delight in possessing the one daughter she had desired
to devise a single pretext for complaint.

Bartle Massey had consented to attend the wedding at Adam's earnest
request, under protest against marriage in general and the marriage of a
sensible man in particular. Nevertheless, Mr. Poyser had a joke against
him after the wedding dinner, to the effect that in the vestry he had
given the bride one more kiss than was necessary.

Behind this last couple came Mr. Irwine, glad at heart over this good
morning's work of joining Adam and Dinah. For he had seen Adam in the
worst moments of his sorrow; and what better harvest from that painful
seed-time could there be than this? The love that had brought hope and
comfort in the hour of despair, the love that had found its way to the
dark prison cell and to poor Hetty's darker soul--this strong gentle
love was to be Adam's companion and helper till death.

There was much shaking of hands mingled with "God bless you's" and other
good wishes to the four couples, at the churchyard gate, Mr. Poyser
answering for the rest with unwonted vivacity of tongue, for he had
all the appropriate wedding-day jokes at his command. And the women, he
observed, could never do anything but put finger in eye at a wedding.
Even Mrs. Poyser could not trust herself to speak as the neighbours
shook hands with her, and Lisbeth began to cry in the face of the very
first person who told her she was getting young again.

Mr. Joshua Rann, having a slight touch of rheumatism, did not join
in the ringing of the bells this morning, and, looking on with some
contempt at these informal greetings which required no official
co-operation from the clerk, began to hum in his musical bass, "Oh what
a joyful thing it is," by way of preluding a little to the effect he
intended to produce in the wedding psalm next Sunday.

"That's a bit of good news to cheer Arthur," said Mr. Irwine to his
mother, as they drove off. "I shall write to him the first thing when we
get home."

Q: Can you write an appropriate summary of the above paragraphs?
A:

completion: A month later, on a rainy November day, Dinah and Adam are married in a simple ceremony. All their friends are there and wish them the best. For Adam, the day recalls another day when he was to be married, but Dinah does not mind the tinge of sorrow on their wedding day. As he rides home after the ceremony, Mr. Irwine reflects that the news of their wedding will be good news to send to Captain Donnithorne. Epilogue In 1807, Dinah calls to Seth in their cottage and tells him that Adam is on his way home. They gather up Adam and Dinah's two children, Lisbeth and Adam, and they all go out to meet Adam. Adam and Seth's mother has died, and Seth remains a bachelor who lives with his brother's family. Adam is returning from his first meeting with Captain Donnithorne, who has just returned to Hayslope. When the family approaches Adam, he takes his son from Seth. The younger Adam goes to Adam very happily. Adam recounts his visit with Captain Donnithorne. The captain, who is now a colonel, is much changed, especially by a recent serious illness, but he is the same old Captain Donnithorne. Dinah is told that Captain Donnithorne also plans to come see her the next day, and she says she will be glad to see him. While he had hoped to see her preach, the captain is told by Adam that she no longer preaches publicly since the Methodists have outlawed it. Reacting angrily to this comment, Seth believes the Methodists were wrong to outlaw the women preachers, but Adam quiets him by saying that Dinah accepted this because it was best. Adam relates how Captain Donnithorne took the news that Hetty has died overseas, just when she would have been allowed to return to England. He says that Captain Donnithorne admits now the wisdom of Adam's saying there are some wrongs that cannot be made up. As the family arrives home, the Poysers are entering their gate. Dinah sends her daughter forward to greet them