Mr. Woolsworthy was a little man, who always wore, except on Sundays,
grey clothes--clothes of so light a grey that they would hardly have
been regarded as clerical in a district less remote. He had now
reached a goodly age, being full seventy years old; but still he was
wiry and active, and showed but few symptoms of decay. His head was
bald, and the few remaining locks that surrounded it were nearly white.
But there was a look of energy about his mouth, and a humour in his
light grey eye, which forbade those who knew him to regard him
altogether as an old man. As it was, he could walk from Oxney Colne to
Priestown, fifteen long Devonshire miles across the moor; and he who
could do that could hardly be regarded as too old for work.

But our present story will have more to do with his daughter than with
him. A pretty girl, I have said, was Patience Woolsworthy; and one,
too, in many ways remarkable. She had taken her outlook into life,
weighing the things which she had and those which she had not, in a
manner very unusual, and, as a rule, not always desirable for a young
lady. The things which she had not were very many. She had not
society; she had not a fortune; she had not any assurance of future
means of livelihood; she had not high hope of procuring for herself a
position in life by marriage; she had not that excitement and pleasure
in life which she read of in such books as found their way down to
Oxney Colne Parsonage. It would be easy to add to the list of the
things which she had not; and this list against herself she made out
with the utmost vigour. The things which she had, or those rather
which she assured herself of having, were much more easily counted.
She had the birth and education of a lady, the strength of a healthy
woman, and a will of her own. Such was the list as she made it out for
herself, and I protest that I assert no more than the truth in saying