he might choose at which of
these two homes she would live altogether.

"If you _could_ choose," Jackie had once said to her in jest, "whose
daughter would you be?"

And now, in years to come, the choice would really have to be made--the
choice between Haworth and Wensdale, hard work and idleness, poverty and
riches. Which would it be?

"Of course," was Jackie's first remark, "you'll choose Wensdale, won't
you?"

But so many strange things had happened lately to Mary that she did not
just now feel as if anything was "of course."

STORY TWO, CHAPTER 1.

BUZLEY'S COURT.

"It's a terr'ble lonesome part from what I hear tell. Miles from the
rail, and the house don't stand as it might be in the village street,
but by itself in the fields. Mrs Roy--that's the Reverend Roy's wife--
was very straight with me about it. `If you think, Mrs Lane,' says
she, `that your daughter'll find the place too dull and far away I'd
rather you'd say so at once, and I'll look out for another girl. It's
not at all like London,' says she, `and I make no doubt Biddy will feel
strange at first.'"

Mrs Lane wielded a large Britannia metal teapot as she spoke, kept an
eye on the sympathetic neighbour sitting opposite at the tea-table, and
also contrived to cast a side glance at Biddy, who stood at the fire
making toast and listening to the conversation. She had heard her
mother say much the same thing a great many times since it had been
settled that she was to go to Wavebury and take care of Mrs Roy's baby,
and she was now quite used to hearing that it was a "lonesome" place,
though she did not know what it meant. At any rate it must be something
impossible to get at Number 6 Buzley's Court, Whitechapel, where she had
lived all the thirteen years of her life. Perhaps she might find it
pleasant to be "lonesome," she thought, and yet her mother always added
the word "terr'ble" to it, as if it were a thing generally to be
disliked.

Meanwhile the conversation went on:

"And she goes to-morrow, then?" said Mrs Jones. "Now I dessay it's a
fairish long journey by rail?"

"We've got all directions wrote out clear, by the Reverend Roy hisself,"
answered Mrs Lane proudly. "Biddy, reach me that letter out of the
chany jug on the shelf."

Receiving it, she flattened it carefully out on the table with the palm
of her hand before the admiring eyes of Mrs Jones, and, pointing to
each word, read out slowly and loudly the directions fo