CHAPTER IV.


In a corner of the Isle of Axholme, in Lincolnshire, and on the
eastern slope of a knoll a few feet above the desolate fenland, six
sisters were seated. The eldest, a woman of thirty-three, held a
book open in her lap and was reading aloud from it; reading with
admirable expression and a voice almost masculine, rich as a
deep-mouthed bell. And, while she read, the glory of the verse
seemed to pass into her handsome, peevish face.

Her listeners heard her contentedly--all but one, who rested a little
lower on the slope, with one knee drawn up, her hands clasped about
it, and her brows bent in a frown as she gazed from under her
sun-bonnet across the level landscape to the roofs and church-tower
of Epworth, five miles away, set on a rise and facing the evening
sun. Across the field below, hemmed about and intersected with dykes
of sluggish water, two wagons moved slowly, each with a group of
labourers about it: for to-night was the end of the oat-harvest, and
they were carrying the last sheaves of Wroote glebe. After the
carrying would come supper, and the worn-out cart-horse which had
brought it afield from the Parsonage stood at the foot of the knoll
among the unladen kegs and baskets, patiently whisking his tail to
keep off the flies, and serenely indifferent that a lean and lanky
youth, seated a few yards away with a drawing-board on his knee, was
attempting his portrait.

The girl frowned as she gazed over this group, over the harvesters,