Page:Eliot - Adam Bede, vol. II, 1859.djvu/356

344 "When they've got old-bachelor sons who would be forlorn without them," said Mr Irwine, laughing, and kissing his mother's hand.

Mrs Poyser, too, met her husband's occasional forebodings of a notice to quit with "There's no knowing what may happen before Lady Day:"—one of those undeniable general propositions which are usually intended to convey a particular meaning very far from undeniable. But it is really too hard upon human nature that it should be held a criminal offence to imagine the death even of the king when he is turned eighty-three. It is not to be believed that any but the dullest Britons can be good subjects under that hard condition.

Apart from this foreboding, things went on much as usual in the Poyser household. Mrs Poyser thought she noticed a surprising improvement in Hetty. To be sure, the girl got "closer tempered, and sometimes she seemed as if there'd be no drawing a word from her with cart-ropes;" but she thought much less about her dress, and went after the work quite eagerly, without any telling. And it was wonderful how she never wanted to go out now—indeed, could hardly be persuaded to go; and she bore her aunt's putting a stop to her weekly