. Good-bye," said the
rector, mounting his horse.

"Just ride slowly on, Irwine," said Captain Donnithorne, mounting also.
"I'll overtake you in three minutes. I'm only going to speak to the
shepherd about the whelps. Good-bye, Mrs. Poyser; tell your husband I
shall come and have a long talk with him soon."

Mrs. Poyser curtsied duly, and watched the two horses until they had
disappeared from the yard, amidst great excitement on the part of the
pigs and the poultry, and under the furious indignation of the bull-dog,
who performed a Pyrrhic dance, that every moment seemed to threaten the
breaking of his chain. Mrs. Poyser delighted in this noisy exit; it was
a fresh assurance to her that the farm-yard was well guarded, and that
no loiterers could enter unobserved; and it was not until the gate had
closed behind the captain that she turned into the kitchen again, where
Dinah stood with her bonnet in her hand, waiting to speak to her aunt,
before she set out for Lisbeth Bede's cottage.

Mrs. Poyser, however, though she noticed the bonnet, deferred remarking
on it until she had disburdened herself of her surprise at Mr. Irwine's
behaviour.

"Why, Mr. Irwine wasn't angry, then? What did he say to you, Dinah?
Didn't he scold you for preaching?"

"No, he was not at all angry; he was very friendly to me. I was quite
drawn out to speak to him; I hardly know how, for I had always thought
of him as a worldly Sadducee. But his countenance is as pleasant as the
morning sunshine."

"Pleasant! And what else did y' expect to find him but pleasant?" said
Mrs. Poyser impatiently, resuming her knitting. "I should think his
countenance is pleasant indeed! And him a gentleman born, and's got a
mother like a picter. You may go the country round and not find such
another woman turned sixty-six. It's summat-like to see such a man as
that i' the desk of a Sunday! As I say to Poyser, it's like looking at
a full crop o' wheat, or a pasture with a fine dairy o' cows in it; it
makes you think the world's comfortable-like. But as for such creaturs
as you Methodisses run after, I'd as soon go to look at a lot o'
bare-ribbed runts on a common. Fine folks they are to tell you what's
right, as look as if they'd never tasted nothing better than bacon-sword
and sour-cake i' their lives. But what did Mr. Irwine say to you about
that fool's trick o' preaching on the Green?"

"He only said he'd heard of it; he didn't seem to feel any displeasure
abo