what we can to make you comfortable, my dear. I can't keep a
table like that you are accustomed to, but that I know you don't expect.
Which way are you going to walk this afternoon? If you pass a shop you
might get a cake, or buns, whichever you like.'

'Well, I thought we might have a turn over the Heath,' said Mr. Hood.
'However, we'll see what we can do.'

A thought of some anxious kind appeared suddenly to strike Mrs. Hood;
she leaned forward in her chair, seemed to listen, then started up and
out of the room.

Emily sat where she could not see her father eating; it pained,
exasperated her to be by him whilst he made such a meal. He ate slowly,
with thought of other things; at times his eye wandered to the window,
and he regarded the sky in a brooding manner. He satisfied his hunger
without pleasure, apparently with indifference. Shortly after three
o'clock the two started for their walk. Not many yards beyond the house
the road passed beneath a railway bridge, then over a canal, and at once
entered upon the common. The Heath formed the long side of a slowly
rising hill; at the foot the road divided itself into two branches, and
the dusty tracks climbed at a wide angle with each other. The one which
Emily and her father pursued led up to stone quarries, which had been
for a long time in working, and, skirting these, to the level ground
above them, which was the end of the region of furze and bracken. Here
began a spacious tract of grassy common; around it were houses of
pleasant appearance, one or two meriting the name of mansion. In one of
them dwelt Mr. Richard Dagworthy, the mill-owner, in whose
counting-house James Hood earned his living. He alone represented the
firm of Dagworthy and Son; his father had been dead two years, and more
recently he had become a widower, his wife leaving him one child still
an infant.

At the head of the quarries the two paused to look back upon Dunfield.
The view from this point was extensive, and would have been interesting
but for the existence of the town itself. It was seen to lie in a broad
valley, along which a river flowed; the remoter districts were
pleasantly wooded, and only the murkiness in the far sky told that a yet
larger centre of industry lurked beyond the horizon. Dunfield offered no
prominent features save the chimneys of its factories and its fine
church, the spire of which rose high above surrounding buildings; over
all hung a canopy of foul vapour, heavy,