returning home with a little bottle of rum, and the eggs in one
hand, while her other was filled with some excellent red-and-white,
smoke-flavoured, Cumberland ham, wrapped up in paper.

She was at home, and frying ham, before Alice had chosen her
nettles, put out her candle, locked her door, and walked in a very
foot-sore manner as far as John Barton's. What an aspect of comfort
did his house-place present, after her humble cellar! She did not
think of comparing; but for all that she felt the delicious glow of
the fire, the bright light that revelled in every corner of the
room, the savoury smells, the comfortable sounds of a boiling
kettle, and the hissing, frizzling ham. With a little old-fashioned
curtsey she shut the door, and replied with a loving heart to the
boisterous and surprised greeting of her brother.

And now all preparations being made, the party sat down; Mrs. Wilson
in the post of honour, the rocking-chair, on the right-hand side of
the fire, nursing her baby, while its father, in an opposite
arm-chair, tried vainly to quiet the other with bread soaked in
milk.

Mrs. Barton knew manners too well to do anything but sit at the
tea-table and make tea, though in her heart she longed to be able to
superintend the frying of the ham, and cast many an anxious look at
Mary as she broke the eggs and turned the ham, with a very
comfortable portion of confidence in her own culinary powers. Jem
stood awkwardly leaning against the dresser, replying rather gruffly
to his aunt's speeches, which gave him, he thought, the air of being
a little boy; whereas he considered himself as a young man, and not
so very young neither, as in two months he would be eighteen.