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Updated: June 18, 2025
The old deacon pushed his spectacles high upon his forehead, and, throwing his head back, looked at Hetty a moment, scrutinizingly, in silence. Then, he said, half to himself, half to her, "You're your grandfather all over, Hetty. Now let me know what I can help you about. You can always come to me, as long as I 'm alive, Hetty. You know that."
"God planted the seeds of all these trees," continued Hetty, after a moment's pause, "and you see to what a height and shade they have grown! So it is with the Bible. You may read a verse this year, and forget it, and it will come back to you a year hence, when you least expect to remember it." "And did you find any thing of this among the savages, poor Hetty?"
"For heaven's sake, Hetty, what is all this?" he cried in desperation. "I can say no more. It is useless to insist, Brandon. If you can wrest the story from her, all well and good. You will hate me then, dear love. But it cannot be helped. I am prepared." "Tell me this much: when you refused to marry Leslie, was your course inspired by what had happened in in connection with Challis Wrandall?"
And so my plot involved you; you were the only one through whom I could strike. There were times when I faltered. I could not bear the thought of sacrificing Hetty Castleton, nor was it easy to thoroughly appease my conscience in respect to you. Still, if I could have had my way a few months ago, if coercion had been of any avail, you would now be the husband of your brother's slayer.
Then, in the next second, touched by the look on her uplifted face, so noble, so pure, so benevolent, he forgot all his resentment, all his perplexity, all his pain; and, stooping over her, he lifted her from her knees, and, folding her close to his bosom, exclaimed: "Oh, my Hetty, my own; forgive me. I am the one that is mad. How can I think of any thing except the joy of having found you again?
If you interrupt me with a silly speech, Hetty, I will pitch you into the canal, and die of sorrow for my lost love afterwards. You know what I am, according to the conventional description: a gentleman with lots of money. Do you know the wicked origin of that money and gentility?" "Oh, Sidney; have you been doing anything?" "No, my best beloved; I am a gentleman, and have been doing nothing.
A distressed expression marked poor Hetty's reception of this news, but she said never a word. "Now you won't tell, Hetty?" said the boy with a look of real anxiety on his face. "It's not so much his killin' me I cares about, but I wouldn't bring daddy to grief for any money. I'd raither 'elp 'im than that. You'll not say a word to nobody?" "No, Bobby, I won't say a word."
She was eager not to lose this evening's opportunity; and after tea, when the boys were going into the garden and Totty begged to go with them, Hetty said, with an alacrity that surprised Mrs. Poyser, "I'll go with her, Aunt."
As Eben Williams looked, day after day, on the picture which Hetty and the baby made, he found himself day after day more and more bewildered by Hetty. She had adopted towards him a uniform manner of cordial familiarity, which had in it, however, no shade of intimacy.
"Yes," said Hetty abstractedly, for her mind had been all the while in the wood, and she would have found it difficult to say what she was assenting to. Dinah saw she was not inclined to talk, but there would not have been time to say much more, for they were now at the yard-gate.
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