The square o' four is sixteen, and you must lengthen your lever in proportion to your weight, is as true when a man's miserable as when he's happy; and the best o' working is, it gives you a grip hold o' things outside your own lot." As he dashed the cold water over his head and face, he felt completely himself again, and with his black eyes as keen as ever and his thick black hair all glistening with the fresh moisture, he went into the workshop to look out the wood for his father's coffin, intending that he and Seth should carry it with them to Jonathan Burge's and have the coffin made by one of the workmen there, so that his mother might not see and hear the sad task going forward at home.
He had just gone into the workshop when his quick ear detected a light rapid foot on the stairs--certainly not his mother's.

He had been in bed and asleep when Dinah had come in, in the evening, and now he wondered whose step this could be.

A foolish thought came, and moved him strangely.

As if it could be Hetty! She was the last person likely to be in the house.

And yet he felt reluctant to go and look and have the clear proof that it was some one else.