hills seem to flow away gently from us into the far blue
distance, till they are lost in the bright softness of the sky.
At one point, which we can see from our bedroom windows, they dip
suddenly into the plain, and show, over the rich marshy flat, a
strip of distant sea--a strip sometimes blue, sometimes gray;
sometimes, when the sun sets, a streak of fire; sometimes, on
showery days, a flash of silver light.

The inhabitants of the farmhouse have one great and rare
merit--they are people whom you can make friends with at once.
Between not knowing them at all, and knowing them well enough to
shake hands at first sight, there is no ceremonious interval or
formal gradation whatever. They received us, on our arrival,
exactly as if we were old friends returned from some long
traveling expedition. Before we had been ten minutes in the hall,
William had the easiest chair and the snuggest corner; the
children were eating bread-and-jam on the window-seat; and I was
talking to the farmer's wife, with the cat on my lap, of the time
when Emily had the measles.

The family numbers seven, exclusive of the indoor servants, of
course. First came the farmer and his wife--he is a tall, sturdy,
loud-voiced, active old man--she the easiest, plumpest and gayest
woman of sixty I ever met with. They have three sons and two
daughters. The two eldest of the young men are employed on the
farm; the third is a sailor, and is making holiday-time of it
just now at Appletreewick. The daughters are pictures of health
and freshness. I have but one complaint to make against
them--they are beginning to spoil the children already.