Rotha, under the trees Wordsworth planted. He is such a man as
Wordsworth would have loved.'

Mr. Hammond shrugged his shoulders, and said no more. Mary's little
vehement ways, her enthusiasm, her love of that valley, which might be
called her native place, albeit her eyes had opened upon heaven's light
far away, her humility, were all very delightful in their way. She was
not a perfect beauty, like Lesbia; but she was a fresh, pure-minded
English girl, frank as the day, and if he had had a brother he would
have recommended that brother to choose just such a girl for his wife.

Mr. Samuel Barlow occupied a little old cottage, which seemed to consist
chiefly of a gable end and a chimney stack, in that cluster of dwellings
behind St. Oswald's church, which was once known as the Kirk Town.
Visitors went downstairs to get to Mr. Barlow's ground-floor, for the
influence of time and advancing civilisation had raised the pathway in
front of Mr. Barlow's cottage until his parlour had become of a
cellar-like aspect. Yet it was a very nice little parlour when one got
down to it, and it enjoyed winter and summer a perpetual twilight, since
the light that crept through the leaded casement was tempered by a
screen of flowerpots, which were old Barlow's particular care. There
were no finer geraniums in all Grasmere than Barlow's, no bigger
carnations or picotees, asters or arums.

It was about five o'clock in the March afternoon, when Mary ushered John
Hammond into Mr. Barlow's dwelling, and, in the dim glow of a cheery
little fire and the faint light that filtered through the screen of
geranium leaves, the visitor looked for a moment or so doubtfully at the
owner of the cottage. But only for a moment. Those bright blue eyes and
apple cheeks, that benevolent expression, bore no likeness to the