"A lot matters now; but what matters be up to him."
"I didn't think it was possible to be so happy as I be this minute, foster-father."
"Put it out of your mind, however, so far as nature will let you. We be groping in the dark."
"No, no—it's all light—all light now."
"So far as he's concerned, we be in the dark," he repeated. "No doubt the time's near when he'll offer for you, Dinah. And then he's got to come to me. I remember the first evening he was to Green Hayes, and seemed a thought under the weather and a little doubtful about his Maker. I said he'd got a grievance against life, and I must hear all about that grievance, if such there is."
"You'll never hear anything but the truth from him. He wouldn't do anything that you wouldn't like. I'm feared of him in a way. He's very strict and very stern sometimes. He's not what you call easy on wrongful doing. He's better'n me."
"That no man ever was, or will be," said Ben. "I'm very glad you came to me with this; for if you'd hung off much longer, I'd have had to see the man. Now I shan't, and I'm not sorry. We know where we stand, because you'm so open-minded, thank God, along with me. But we don't know—at least we can't be sure we know—where he stands. It's up to Mr. Maynard to unfold his feelings. And for sure he very soon will."
"And why should you reckon he advised me to be off from here so soon as I could?" asked Dinah again. "Queerly enough I liked him for saying it, and yet—yet you might think there might be a frosty reason."
"There might be. Time will show. You can't be off till we've found the proper place for you to be off to. Now you run home about your chores. Mother wants you in the garden. There's the last lot of rasps to be picked. I didn't count on no more, but I was surprised to see enough to market yet."
She ran up the hill and he descended to a field of heavy oats. The weather after a spell of sunny days began to break up and Mr. Bamsey hoped to get his crop off the ground before it did so. But his mind was not on his oats. He believed that Dinah must indeed leave him now, and guessed that Maynard would think it wise to abandon his present work and take her far away. Mr. Bamsey knew what this must mean for him. He did not disguise from himself that he loved Dinah better than anything on earth, while blaming himself unfeignedly for doing so.