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"You would not like to be long dependent on our hospitality-you would wish, I see, to dispense as soon as may be with my sisters' compassion, and, above all, with my charity (I am quite sensible of the distinction drawn, nor do I resent it-it is just): you desire to be independent of us?"

"I do: I have already said so. Show me how to work, or how to seek work: that is all I now ask; then let me go, if it be but to the meanest cottage; but till then, allow me to stay here: I dread another essay of the horrors of homeless destitution."

"Indeed you shall stay here," said Diana, putting her white hand on my head. "You shall," repeated Mary, in the tone of undemonstrative sincerity which seemed natural to her.

"My sisters, you see, have a pleasure in keeping you," said Mr. St. John, "as they would have a pleasure in keeping and cherishing a half-frozen bird, some wintry wind might have driven through their casement.

I feel more inclination to put you in the way of keeping yourself, and shall endeavour to do so; but observe, my sphere is narrow.

I am but the incumbent of a poor country parish: my aid must be of the humblest sort.

And if you are inclined to despise the day of small things, seek some more efficient succour than such as I can offer."

"She has already said that she is willing to do anything honest she can do," answered Diana for me; "and you know, St. John, she has no choice of helpers: she is forced to put up with such crusty people as you."

"I will be a dressmaker; I will be a plain-workwoman; I will be a servant, a nurse-girl, if I can be no better," I answered.

"Right," said Mr. St. John, quite coolly. "If such is your spirit, I promise to aid you, in my own time and way."

He now resumed the book with which he had been occupied before tea. I soon withdrew, for I had talked as much, and sat up as long, as my present strength would permit.

The more I knew of the inmates of Moor House, the better I liked them.

In a few days I had so far recovered my health that I could sit up all day, and walk out sometimes.

I could join with Diana and Mary in all their occupations; converse with them as much as they wished, and aid them when and where they would allow me.

There was a reviving pleasure in this intercourse, of a kind now tasted by me for the first time-the pleasure arising from perfect congeniality of tastes, sentiments, and principles.

I liked to read what they liked to read: what they enjoyed, delighted me; what they approved, I reverenced.

They loved their sequestered home.

I, too, in the grey, small, antique structure, with its low roof, its latticed casements, its mouldering walls, its avenue of aged firs-all grown aslant under the stress of mountain winds; its garden, dark with yew and holly-and where no flowers but of the hardiest species would bloom-found a charm both potent and permanent.

They clung to the purple moors behind and around their dwelling-to the hollow vale into which the pebbly bridle-path leading from their gate descended, and which wound between fern-banks first, and then amongst a few of the wildest little pasture-fields that ever bordered a wilderness of heath, or gave sustenance to a flock of grey moorland sheep, with their little mossy-faced lambs:-they clung to this scene, I say, with a perfect enthusiasm of attachment.

I could comprehend the feeling, and share both its strength and truth.

I saw the fascination of the locality.

I felt the consecration of its loneliness: my eye feasted on the outline of swell and sweep-on the wild colouring communicated to ridge and dell by moss, by heath-bell, by flower-sprinkled turf, by brilliant bracken, and mellow granite crag.

These details were just to me what they were to them-so many pure and sweet sources of pleasure.

The strong blast and the soft breeze; the rough and the halcyon day; the hours of sunrise and sunset; the moonlight and the clouded night, developed for me, in these regions, the same attraction as for them-wound round my faculties the same spell that entranced theirs.

Chapter 30

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