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She was a good-looking lass with a fine figure, and she came across her one day talking to Mr. Simon and the lass was daring to laugh at something he had said, and out she went on some pretext or other. Now Conway, her present one, is as plain as a pikestaff, with a sour puss on her. Come on, lass, cheer up. I'll brew us a strong cup of tea.

An' look' she thumbed towards the couch 'there's somebody sitting up and taking notice. Not much the worse; but that isn't his mother's fault, because she could have brained him."

The child now came towards Anna, saying, "Are you hurt, Missanna?"

"No. No, dear, I'm not hurt."

He climbed upon her knee, put his arms around her neck and, his face close to hers, he said, "You won't go away and leave me, Missanna, will you?"

She looked back into the innocent countenance and she paused a moment before she answered him:

"No, dear," she said; "I won't go and leave you."

That evening, again sitting around the fire, she did not relate the events of the day to the family, merely saying that things had gone as usual. In

any case, the interest was focused on the affairs of Bobby Crane, who had been offered a job of sorts in Gateshead Fell, the terms of which were under discussion.

There was a small boat-builder on the river bank who wanted an apprentice, someone willing to learn and around the age of Bobby, who was now seventeen, but the wage was very poor, only seven shillings a week, and, as Bobby said, he could never pay lodgings out of that and live. So would Nathaniel allow him to sleep in the barn until something better came along? But he fancied this job as he would be working under the open sky. Rain, hail, or shine, it wouldn't matter to him as long as he was on top of the ground instead of under it. And the hours were good, half-past seven till half-past five with a half-hour off for dinner. He had offered to pay two shillings a week for his sleeping quarters; the rest he would need to live on.

Nathaniel had shaken his head at this point and said, "God help him.

However, I have already told him there would be no rent charged for any sleeping quarters here. And Oswald, too, if he takes this job of managing the pies and peas shop, which is in his mind to do, then out of his good wage he has promised to pay for a dinner for the lad and there'll always be a bite left over here for him at night. " But her father had ended, " What I'm really pleased about is he's more than anxious to keep up his learning, so anxious that he is determined, after he finishes at half-past one on a Saturday, he'll go around the markets and see if he can pick up some cheap books. He's got the bug all right. "

It was Cherry who put in at this stage, "He's even speaking differently; I couldn't understand the pitmatic at first. And he looked quite nice today. Ma had given him one of Olan's coats."

Here, Olan created the usual gale of laughter by saying, "Olan had only two coats and now Olan's got only one."

Leaning back against the head of the settle, Anna looked around at the fire-illuminated faces and for the countless time she told herself there couldn't be another family on earth like this one. Then that little streak of fear crept into her thinking as it had been wont to do of late: What if something happened to break it up? Yet what could happen? Nothing, except they could marry and go away . Marry, did she say?

Who would want to marry them? At least. Cherry and herself. The boys might stand a better chance, but it wouldn't happen in the village or hereabouts. Oh, no, never hereabouts. But why worry about her family?

they could certainly take care of themselves. What she had to worry about was that house, or the mistress of it, and the little boy who had grown to love her, and she him.

The mistress was leaving for London; and the bustle made itself felt on the nursery floor when Betty Carter rushed into the schoolroom and, addressing Anna in her usual fashion, said, "Give him here! Peggy Maybright has to get him ready for downstairs; the mistress wants to see him."

"Leave him alone!" Anna almost snapped the girl's hand from the child's arm.

"He doesn't need to be got ready except that his hands need to be washed, and I will see to that. If you have to accompany him downstairs, kindly wait outside."

Anna watched the girl draw herself up to her full height before saying,

"One of these days ..."

"Yes? One of these days, you were saying?"

The girl flounced out of the room, and Anna said to the child, "Come along, dear," and went over to the table on which stood a basin and a ewer of water, and as she poured out the water the child said, "Why don't you take me down, Missanna, to see Mama?"

She paused for a moment before she said, "Your mama hasn't asked for me. Anyway' she was drying his hands now 'it is you your mama wants to see. Now, be very polite, won't you? And tell your mama you hope that she has a nice holiday."

She now took the boy to the door, where Betty Carter was standing with her arms folded and the light of battle in her eyes. And when Anna saw her thrust her hand out towards the child, she said quietly, "You have no need to take his hand; he is quite used to walking alone. Go along, Andrew."

She watched them as far as the top of the stairs, where the girl paused a moment before glancing back at her.

She returned to the classroom, closing the door behind her, and leant against it for a moment as she asked herself: How was it that she engendered such animosity? Surely it wasn't solely because of her birth? Could it be her manner towards people? But look how well she got on with nurse and Peggy, and how nice madam's servants were to her.

And there was the housekeeper, Mrs. Hewitt. She was very civil towards her . well, most of the time. Sometimes she appeared to be on her guard. Why this should be she couldn't imagine. Was the animosity towards her because she spoke differently? Perhaps. Well, she had her father to thank for that and she did thank him. And thinking of him reminded her of the book he said he would like . It was during the child's rest hour that she decided to take advantage of the permission granted to her to use the library, for her father had mentioned that there was a certain book that he would like to read and which he had been unable to get elsewhere. She had made a note of it: Pope's translation of Homer's Iliad and of his Odyssey. They would probably be in such a library as was in this house.

She knocked on the nurse's sitting-room door and when the voice said,

"Come in. Come in, my dear," she went in and was greeted with, "You're just in time for a cup of tea."

"If you don't mind, nurse, I won't have any just yet. I'm going to take the opportunity of slipping down to the library. I told you I had permission."

"Aye, yes, you did."

"Well, where is it? Where do I go from the main hall ... " Oh, you don't have to go near the main hall. When you get to the foot of the stairs here you'll see a door opposite. Now that doesn't lead into a bedroom or such, but into a passage; then a flight of stairs leads down to the West wing, and when you land in the corridor there you'll see an oak door right in front of your eyes. It stands out from the rest for it has a rounded top. Well, that's the library, and a splendid room it is an' all; but I don't know if it's much used these days. "

"Thank you, nurse." She was about to turn away when she recalled that there was something she had meant to ask the nurse. And so tentatively she said, "The master. The child doesn't speak of his grandfather."

"Huh! That's easy to explain. He's very seldom here, 'cos he travels all over the world digging up bits of crocks here and there."

"He would be what you would call an archaeologist then."

"Oh, would he?" The old woman's eyebrows moved upwards.

"Oh, you learned ones put names to things, don't you? Well, my explanation for what he is would be a digger up of the dead."

"Oh, nurse."

She went out laughing, and, following the old woman's instructions, she came to the black oak door with the arched top, and when she opened it and looked down the long room she could only gasp at the magnificence of it. It had a painted, domed ceiling, and at the far end were two long windows which apparently looked onto the garden, for she could glimpse the trees in the distance. Slowly she walked towards the highly polished mahogany- topped table that was flanked by a number of carved high-backed chairs.

She stood at one end of the table and put her hand down on the head of the animal whose curved body formed an arm of the chair, and she stroked it for a moment as if in appreciation of the workmanship. Then she turned her head first one way and then the other, and finally her gaze came to rest on the wide stone fireplace with a log fire smouldering in the hearth. The logs, she noticed, were at least four times as long as those they cut for their fire at home.

Above the fireplace two antler-headed animals seemed to be staring down at her. She looked away; she didn't like animals turned into trophies;

it put her too much in mind of the cruelty of the stag hunt.

At each side of the fireplace enormous glass bookcases filled the walls, but it was the long wall opposite the fireplace that particularly held her interest. Apart from a door at the end and two small alcoves, the entire wall was made up of bookshelves holding what must be, she told herself, thousands of books.

She stood with her head back, looking upwards and wondering for a moment how anyone could reach a book from that top shelf, when she saw at the other end of the room near the door by which she had entered, a kind of double stepladder; it was on wheels and had a platform on the top.

She smiled to herself. That's how they would reach the top shelf. Oh, how her father would love this room. She could see him spending his entire day here.

She walked to one of the alcoves. The recess was about two and a half feet deep and four or five feet wide. There was a padded bench attached to one side and a flap table at the other. The table, she saw, was hinged, and once one sat down it could be lifted up practically across the knees. The little place suggested study and she could imagine the two brothers, when they were young, being made to sit here while their tutor sat at the centre table.

She ran her hand along a row of books. She must find her dada's book and get back before the child woke and needed her. But how was she to go about finding Pope? Well, she supposed it being a fine library the books would be in alphabetical order or, at least, divided into sections.

Thinking of alphabetical order, she began to move along the shelves and soon noticed brass slots holding cards. The one she was looking at read "17th Century" ; and the books here were certainly in alphabetical order. And so she moved along to the next section which, as she had expected, read "18th Century" This should be it. And yes: there was The Essay On Man. She took it from the shelf, and looked further along, and was not disappointed: she took down Pope's translation of The Iliad and his translation of The Odyssey in one volume. Her dada had already told her the story in the form of mythology; it was almost, to her, a fairy tale. This translation was in poetic form, and immediately she had the feeling she would never tackle reading it. She liked a straightforward story, one written by Mr. Charles Dickens or Mrs. Gaskell.

She wasn't sure when she actually became aware of someone talking. She rose from the seat in the alcove and looked up and down the room.

Perhaps it was someone walking in the garden, but they must be talking loudly for their voices to penetrate these thick walls.

She now walked down the room towards the window and as she did so she had to pass the other door in the room. She noticed it was an ordinary door and that it was slightly ajar, and she was actually startled as she recognised the mistress's voice coming from the room beyond. She had assumed she had already left the house.

She was about to turn and tiptoe up the room when the words that came to her halted her movement, because the voice from the other room was saying, "You'll come over to France, won't you, darling? Promise me?"

The master had been gone from the house these last two days and now the mistress was talking to someone and using endearments.

"I promise you, my love. I promise you."

"But what about next week?"

"I'll be up there like a shot if those damn savages behave themselves.

But if they come out on strike, well, I'll have to be here, at least for a time. "

"Why can't the other two come and take their share? I've told you you should suggest it."

"And I've told you, my dear one, I'm single- minded in everything I do, what I own, what I manage, and ... and whom I love."

As her mind opened to the situation presented by the words she had overheard, she turned and at a tiptoeing run reached the alcove.

There, having quickly grabbed up the two leather-bound volumes that were furthest from her, she made to snatch at the Addison and Steele book; but so hasty was her action that it slipped from her fingers.

Had it fallen on its edge it would have made little noise, but it landed flat on the floor with a loud plop!

She was in a panic as she stooped to pick it up, for she heard the door being pulled fully open, and, trembling, she stood up to face once again the startled but infuriated stare of Penella Brodrick.

Raymond Brodrick was at her side, and it was he who spoke. His voice light and over-hearty, he said, "Ah! Miss Dagshaw; you are sampling the library?"

Before she could answer she watched the woman, as she thought of her, move swiftly towards her, demanding now, "What are you doing here?"

"I am choosing some books. Mistress."

"How dare you! Choosing some books, are you? Who gave you permission to come into this room, or anywhere near it?"

"Madam did." She did not add, "And your husband."

The woman turned and said to her brother-inlaw, "Did you hear that?

I ask you, did you hear that? "

"Yes. Yes, I heard." And he looked at Anna and asked quite politely,