Hetty Wesley

ld of waters, forlorn as a cornstack in a flood, and the Rector of Epworth journeyed between his two

ck and of rotting weed beyond, the Wesley household lived cheerfully enough, albeit pinched for room; more cheerfully than at Epworth, where the

he burden. For Dick Ellison, Sukey's husband, had undertaken to finance Epworth tithe, and was renting the rectory for a while with the purpose of bringing his father

ate offensiveness, and a loud patronising laugh which drove the Rector mad. Comedy presided over their encounters; but such comedy as only the ill-natured can enjoy. And the Rector, splenetic, ex

ave her a sense of helpfulness she had not known at Epworth; a pound saved may be a pound gained, but a pound earned can be held in the hand, and the touch makes a wonderful difference. The girls had flung themselves heartily into the farm-work: they talked of it, at night, around the kitchen hearth (for of the two sitting-rooms one had been given up to their fath

s glebe arou

l pasture t

ely milky n

nd cleanl

Moll, or An

should neg

re haunches

ing of a

bout "sows and pigs and porkets,"

Anne, or f

or sobe

used by the lines and c

e happier than they had been for many years: nor was poverty the real reason for Hetty's going into service at Kelstein; since Emilia had been fetched home from Lincoln (where for five years she had been

ppressed him and all the household: but Mrs. Wesley knew in her heart that, were poverty the only reason, Hetty need not go. Hetty knew it, too, and rebelled. She was

art she believed to be engaged, though she could not tell how deeply. But the Rector must be considered, and he had taken an instant and almost frantic dislike for the youth. There was nothing unusual in this: for, like many another uxorious man (with all his faults of temper he was uxorious), Mr. Wesley hated that anyone should offer love to his daughters. This antipathy of his had been a nuisance for ten years past; since the girls were, when all was said, honest he

tachment for John Romley, who had been a pupil of Sam's, had afterwards graduated at Lincoln College, Oxford, and was now the ambitious young master of the Free School at Epworth. Again the Rector interfered, and Patty sighed and renounced her romance. Would Hetty, too, renounce and acquiesce? Mrs. Wesley doubted: nay, was even afraid. Hetty alone had never been overawed by her father, had never acknowledged the patria potestas with all its exorbitant claims. She had never actually

e you are afraid

ing resembling it, bent her head. "I hav

e neither very brave nor very wise. W

w of your going? You don't tell

our first question is a little foo

whom Love

al'd fro

sand guard

find out

her chin

ou," said Mrs. Wesley wistfully, with a sudden craving to

ld precisely; and we read one another, dear, much better than we allow.

ght, H

But I will promise you this"-here her words began to drag-"and to strengthen me no less than to ease your fears, I promise it, mother. If the worst come to the worst, it s

eak in

tragedy: for, you know, Molly declares we have a doom upon us, though we cannot agree what 'tis. I uphold it to be debt, or papa's tantrums, or perhaps Old

esley, her face relaxing, "to listen to

and then reason steps in and proves to me that I am seven years your senior-which is absurd, and the absurder for the grave wise face you put upon it. So come along, sweet-and

end in lov

man's son