now not rich enough to give them fortunes, they must provide for themselves.  They had lived very little at home for a long while, and were only come now to stay a few weeks on account of their father’s death; but they did so like Marsh End and Morton, and all these moors and hills about.  They had been in London, and many other grand towns; but they always said there was no place like home; and then they were so agreeable with each other —­ never fell out nor “threaped.”  She did not know where there was such a family for being united.

Having finished my task of gooseberry picking, I asked where the two ladies and their brother were now.

“Gone over to Morton for a walk; but they would be back in half-an-hour to tea.”

They returned within the time Hannah had allotted them:  they entered by the kitchen door.  Mr. St. John, when he saw me, merely bowed and passed through; the two ladies stopped:  Mary, in a few words, kindly and calmly expressed the pleasure she felt in seeing me well enough to be able to come down; Diana took my hand:  she shook her head at me.

“You should have waited for my leave to descend,” she said.  “You still look very pale —­ and so thin!  Poor child! —­ poor girl!”

Diana had a voice toned, to my ear, like the cooing of a dove.  She possessed eyes whose gaze I delighted to encounter.  Her whole face seemed to me full of charm.  Mary’s countenance was equally intelligent —­ her features equally pretty; but her expression was more reserved, and her manners, though gentle, more distant.  Diana looked and spoke with a certain authority:  she had a will, evidently.  It was my nature to feel pleasure in yielding to an authority supported like hers, and to bend, where my conscience and self-respect permitted, to an active will.

“And what business have you here?” she continued.  “It is not your place.  Mary and I sit in the kitchen sometimes, because at home we like to be free, even to license —­ but you are a visitor, and must go into the parlour.”

“I am very well here.”

“Not at all, with Hannah bustling about and covering you with flour.”

“Besides, the fire is too hot for you,” interposed Mary.

“To be sure,” added her sister.  “Come, you must be obedient.”  And still holding my hand she made me rise, and led me into the inner room.

“Sit there,” she said, placing me on the sofa, “while we take our things off and get the tea ready; it is another privilege we exercise in our little moorland home —­ to prepare our own meals when we are so inclined, or when Hannah is baking, brewing, washing, or ironing.”

She closed the door, leaving me solus with Mr. St. John, who sat opposite, a book or newspaper in his hand.  I examined first, the parlour, and then its occupant.