write and count for twopence a week. If the poor villagers were
ill or unhappy, his wife used to visit them, and help them with advice
as well as with money, and we may be quite sure that her little
daughters often went with her on her rounds.

So the early years of Florence's childhood passed away amidst the
flowery fields and bare hills that overlooked the beautiful river
Derwent. The village, built of stone like so many in the North Country,
lay far below, and on Sundays the two little girls, dressed in their
best tippets and bonnets, used to walk with their father and mother
across the meadows to the tiny church at Dethick. Here nearly two
hundred and fifty years ago one Anthony Babington knelt in prayer,
though his thoughts often wandered to the beautiful Scottish queen, shut
up by order of Elizabeth in Wingfield manor, only a few miles away. Of
course Parthy and Florence knew all about him, and their greatest treat
was a visit to his house, where they could see in the kitchen a
trap-door leading to a large secret chamber, in which a conspirator
might live for weeks without being found out. A great deal of the house
had been pulled down or allowed to fall into decay, but the bailiff, who
lived in the rest, was always glad to see them, and would take them to
all kinds of delightful places, and up little dark narrow winding
stairs, at the end of which you pushed up another trap-door and found
yourself in your bedroom. What a fascinating way of getting there, and
how very, very silly people are now to have wide staircases and straight
passages and stupid doors, which you _know_ will open, instead of never
being sure if the trap-door had not stuck, or some enemy had not placed
a heavy piece of furniture upon it!

* * * * *

But much as the Nightingales, big and little, loved Lea hall, it was
very bare and cold in winter, and Florence's father determined to build
a new house in a more sheltered place. Lea Hurst, as it was called, was
only a mile from the hall, and, like it, overlooked the Derwent; but
here the hills were wooded and kept out the bitter winds which had
howled and wailed through the old house. Mr. Nightingale was very
careful that all should be done exactly as he wished, therefore it took
some time to finish, and _then_ the family could not move in till the
paint and plaster were dry, so that Florence was between five and six
when at last they took possession.

No doubt t