on a sort of
rustic loggia that opens into the orchard. Her sleeves are rolled up,
and she's stripping currants, ready for black currant tea. Now and then
she rests her elbows on the table, eats a berry, pouts her lips, and,
begins again. She has a round, little face; a long, slender body; cheeks
like poppies; a bushy mass of black-brown hair, and dark-brown, almost
black, eyes; her nose is snub; her lips quick, red, rather full; all her
motions quick and soft. She loves bright colours. She's rather like a
little cat; sometimes she seems all sympathy, then in a moment as hard as
tortoise-shell. She's all impulse; yet she doesn't like to show her
feelings; I sometimes wonder whether she has any. She plays the violin.

It's queer to see these two together, queer and rather sad. The old man
has a fierce tenderness for her that strikes into the very roots of him.
I see him torn between it, and his cold north-country horror of his
feelings; his life with her is an unconscious torture to him. She's a
restless, chafing thing, demure enough one moment, then flashing out into
mocking speeches or hard little laughs. Yet she's fond of him in her
fashion; I saw her kiss him once when he was asleep. She obeys him
generally--in a way as if she couldn't breathe while she was doing it.
She's had a queer sort of education--history, geography, elementary
mathematics, and nothing else; never been to school; had a few lessons on
the violin, but has taught herself most of what she knows. She is well up
in the lore of birds, flowers, and insects; has three cats, who follow
her about; and is full of pranks. The other day she called out to me,
"I've something for you. Hold out your hand and shut your eyes!" It was
a large, black slug! She's the child of the old fellow's only daughter,
who was sent home for schooling at Torquay, and made a runaway match with
one Richard Voisey, a yeoman farmer, whom she met in the hunting-field.
John Ford was furious--his ancestors, it appears, used to lead ruffians
on the Cumberland side of the Border--he looked on "Squire" Rick Voisey
as a cut below him. He was called "Squire," as far as I can make out,
because he used to play cards every evening with a parson in the
neighbourhood who went by the name of "Devil" Hawkins. Not that the
Voisey stock is to be despised. They have had this farm since it was
granted to one Richard Voysey by copy dated 8th September, 13 Henry VIII.
Mrs. Hopgood, the w