‘The cake?’ he repeated in surprise.

’Didn’t I ask you to bring a cake?  I suppose my memory is going; I meant to, and thought I mentioned it at breakfast.  I shall have nothing for Emily’s tea.’

Emily protested that it was needless to get unusual things on her account.

’We must do what we can to make you comfortable, my dear.  I can’t keep a table like that you are accustomed to, but that I know you don’t expect.  Which way are you going to walk this afternoon?  If you pass a shop you might get a cake, or buns, whichever you like.’

‘Well, I thought we might have a turn over the Heath,’ said Mr. Hood.  ‘However, we’ll see what we can do.’

A thought of some anxious kind appeared suddenly to strike Mrs. Hood; she leaned forward in her chair, seemed to listen, then started up and out of the room.

Emily sat where she could not see her father eating; it pained, exasperated her to be by him whilst he made such a meal.  He ate slowly, with thought of other things; at times his eye wandered to the window, and he regarded the sky in a brooding manner.  He satisfied his hunger without pleasure, apparently with indifference.  Shortly after three o’clock the two started for their walk.  Not many yards beyond the house the road passed beneath a railway bridge, then over a canal, and at once entered upon the common.  The Heath formed the long side of a slowly rising hill; at the foot the road divided itself into two branches, and the dusty tracks climbed at a wide angle with each other.  The one which Emily and her father pursued led up to stone quarries, which had been for a long time in working, and, skirting these, to the level ground above them, which was the end of the region of furze and bracken.  Here began a spacious tract of grassy common; around it were houses of pleasant appearance, one or two meriting the name of mansion.  In one of them dwelt Mr. Richard Dagworthy, the mill-owner, in whose counting-house James Hood earned his living.  He alone represented the firm of Dagworthy and Son; his father had been dead two years, and more recently he had become a widower, his wife leaving him one child still an infant.

At the head of the quarries the two paused to look back upon Dunfield.  The view from this point was extensive, and would have been interesting but for the existence of the town itself.  It was seen to lie in a broad valley, along which a river flowed; the remoter districts were pleasantly wooded, and only the murkiness in the far sky told that a yet larger centre of industry lurked beyond the horizon.  Dunfield offered no prominent features save the chimneys of its factories and its fine church, the spire of which rose high above surrounding buildings; over all hung a canopy of foul vapour, heavy, pestiferous.  Take in your fingers a spray from one of the trees even here on the Heath, and its touch left a soil.

‘How I wish you could see the views from the hills in Surrey!’ Emily exclaimed when they had stood in silence.  ’I can imagine nothing more delightful in English scenery.  It realises my idea of perfect rural beauty, as I got it from engravings after the landscape painters.  Oh, you shall go there with me some day.’