Page:Eliot - Adam Bede, vol. III, 1859.djvu/13

From Wikisource
Jump to navigation Jump to search
This page has been validated.

ADAM BEDE.




CHAPTER XXXVI.


THE JOURNEY IN HOPE.


A long, lonely journey, with sadness in the heart; away from the familiar to the strange: that is a hard and dreary thing even to the rich, the strong, the instructed: a hard thing, even when we are called by duty, not urged by dread.

What was it then to Hetty? With her poor narrow thoughts, no longer melting into vague hopes, but pressed upon by the chill of definite fear; repeating again and again the same small round of memories—shaping again and again the same childish, doubtful images of what was to come—seeing nothing in this wide world but the little history of her own pleasures and pains; with so little money