fond of 'em; but she's a strange way of
not liking young women. Though, to be sure," Adam went on, smiling, "her
not liking other young women is no reason why she shouldn't like you."

Hitherto Gyp had been assisting at this conversation in motionless
silence, seated on his haunches, and alternately looking up in his
master's face to watch its expression and observing Dinah's movements
about the kitchen. The kind smile with which Adam uttered the last words
was apparently decisive with Gyp of the light in which the stranger
was to be regarded, and as she turned round after putting aside her
sweeping-brush, he trotted towards her and put up his muzzle against her
hand in a friendly way.

"You see Gyp bids you welcome," said Adam, "and he's very slow to
welcome strangers."

"Poor dog!" said Dinah, patting the rough grey coat, "I've a strange
feeling about the dumb things as if they wanted to speak, and it was a
trouble to 'em because they couldn't. I can't help being sorry for the
dogs always, though perhaps there's no need. But they may well have more
in them than they know how to make us understand, for we can't say half
what we feel, with all our words."

Seth came down now, and was pleased to find Adam talking with Dinah; he
wanted Adam to know how much better she was than all other women.
But after a few words of greeting, Adam drew him into the workshop to
consult about the coffin, and Dinah went on with her cleaning.

By six o'clock they were all at breakfast with Lisbeth in a kitchen as
clean as she could have made it herself. The window and door were open,
and the morning air brought with it a mingled scent of southernwood,
thyme, and sweet-briar from the patch of garden by the side of the
cottage. Dinah did not sit down at first, but moved about, serving the
others with the warm porridge and the toasted oat-cake, which she had
got ready in the usual way, for she had asked Seth to tell her just what
his mother gave them for breakfast. Lisbeth had been unusually silent
since she came downstairs, apparently requiring some time to adjust her
ideas to a state of things in which she came down like a lady to find
all the work done, and sat still to be waited on. Her new sensations
seemed to exclude the remembrance of her grief. At last, after tasting
the porridge, she broke silence:

"Ye might ha' made the parridge worse," she said to Dinah; "I can ate it
wi'out its turnin' my stomach. It might ha' been a trifle