This blush recalled Adam from his forgetfulness.
"I was quite taken by surprise; it was very good of you to come and see my mother in her trouble," he said, in a gentle grateful tone, for his quick mind told him at once how she came to be there.

"I hope my mother was thankful to have you," he added, wondering rather anxiously what had been Dinah's reception.
"Yes," said Dinah, resuming her work, "she seemed greatly comforted after a while, and she's had a good deal of rest in the night, by times.
She was fast asleep when I left her." "Who was it took the news to the Hall Farm ?" said Adam, his thoughts reverting to some one there; he wondered whether SHE had felt anything about it.
"It was Mr.Irwine, the clergyman, told me, and my aunt was grieved for your mother when she heard it, and wanted me to come; and so is my uncle, I'm sure, now he's heard it, but he was gone out to Rosseter all yesterday.

They'll look for you there as soon as you've got time to go, for there's nobody round that hearth but what's glad to see you." Dinah, with her sympathetic divination, knew quite well that Adam was longing to hear if Hetty had said anything about their trouble; she was too rigorously truthful for benevolent invention, but she had contrived to say something in which Hetty was tacitly included.

Love has a way of cheating itself consciously, like a child who plays at solitary hide-and-seek; it is pleased with assurances that it all the while disbelieves.

Adam liked what Dinah had said so much that his mind was directly full of the next visit he should pay to the Hall Farm, when Hetty would perhaps behave more kindly to him than she had ever done before.
"But you won't be there yourself any longer ?" he said to Dinah.
"No, I go back to Snowfield on Saturday, and I shall have to set out to Treddleston early, to be in time for the Oakbourne carrier.