They pursued their walk, across the common and into a tree-shaded lane.  Emily tried to believe that this at length was really the country; there were no houses in view, meadows lay on either hand, the leafage was thick.  But it was not mere prejudice which saw in every object a struggle with hard conditions, a degeneration into coarseness, a blight.  The quality of the earth was probably poor to begin with; the herbage seemed of gross fibre; one would not risk dipping a finger in the stream which trickled by the roadside, it suggested an impure source.  And behold, what creatures are these coming along the lane, where only earth-stained rustics should be met?  Two colliers, besmutted wretches, plodding homeward from the ‘pit’ which is half a mile away.  Yes, their presence was in keeping with the essential character of the scene.

‘One might have had a harder life,’ mused Mr. Hood aloud, when the pitmen were gone by.

‘I think there’s a fallacy in that,’ replied Emily.  ’Their life is probably not hard at all.  I used to feel that pity, but I have reasoned myself out of it.  They are really happy, for they know nothing of their own degradation.’

‘By the bye,’ said her father presently, ’how is young Mr. Athel, the young fellow who had to come home from college ?’

‘He is quite well again, I think,’ was Emily’s reply.

‘I suppose, poor fellow, he has a very weak constitution?’

‘Oh no, I think not.’

‘What is he studying for?  Going into the Church?’

Emily laughed; it was a relief to do so.

‘Isn’t it strange,’ she said, ’how we construct an idea of an unknown person from some circumstance or piece of description?  I see exactly what your picture of Mr. Athel is:  a feeble and amiable young man, most likely with the shocking voice with which curates sometimes read the lessons—­’

She broke off and laughed again.

‘Well,’ said her father, ’I admit I thought of him a little in that way—­I scarcely know why.’

’You could hardly have been further from the truth.  Try to imagine the intellectual opposite of such a young man, and you—­That will be far more like Mr. Athel.’

’He isn’t conceited?  My want of experience has an unfortunate tendency to make me think of young fellows in his position as unbearably vain.  It must be so hard to avoid it.’

’Perhaps it is, if they have the common misfortune to be born without brains.’

Other subjects engaged their attention.

‘When do you take your holiday, father?’ Emily asked.

’I think about the middle of this month.  It won’t be more than a week or ten days.’

’Don’t you think you ought to go to Cleethorpes, if only for a day or two?’