the fens, the dykes, and away toward Epworth: and even her frown
became her mightily. Her favourite sister, Molly, seated beside her,
and glancing now and again at her face, believed that the whole world
contained nothing so beautiful. But this was a fixed belief of
Molly's. She was a cripple, and in spite of features made almost
angelic by the ineffable touch of goodness, the family as a rule
despised her, teased her, sometimes went near to torment her; for the
Wesleys, like many other people of iron constitution, had a healthy
impatience of deformity and weakness. Hetty alone treated her always
gently and made much of her, not as one who would soften a defect,
but as seeing none; Hetty of the high spirits, the clear eye, the
springing gait; Hetty, the wittiest, cleverest, mirthfullest of them
all; Hetty, glorious to look upon.

All the six were handsome. Here they are in their order: Emilia,
aged thirty-three (it was she who held the book); Molly,
twenty-eight; Hetty, twenty-seven; Nancy, twenty-two, lusty,
fresh-complexioned, and the least bit stupid; Patty, nearing
eighteen, dark-skinned and serious, the one of the Wesleys who could
never be persuaded to see a joke; and Kezzy, a lean child of fifteen,
who had outgrown her strength. By baptism, Molly was Mary; Hetty,
Mehetabel; Nancy, Anne; Patty, Martha; and Kezzy, Kezia. But the
register recording most of these names had perished at Epworth in the
Parsonage fire, so let us keep the familiar ones. Grown women and
girls, all the six were handsome. They had an air of resting there
aloof; with a little fancy you might have taken them, in their plain
print frocks, for six goddesses reclining on the knoll and watching
the harvesters at work on the plain below--poor drudging mortals and
unmannerly: