Wanley would have mourned their departure; they were the aristocracy
of the neighbourhood, and to have them ousted by a name which no one
knew, a name connected only with blast-furnaces, would have made a
distinct fall in the tone of Wanley society. Fortunately no changes
were made in the structure by its new owner. Not far from it you see
the church and the vicarage, these also unmolested in their quiet
age. Wanley, it is to be feared, lags far behind the times--painfully
so, when one knows for a certainty that the valley upon which it
looks conceals treasures of coal, of ironstone--blackband, to be
technical--and of fireclay. Some ten years ago it seemed as if
better things were in store; there was a chance that the vale
might for ever cast off its foolish greenery, and begin vomiting
smoke and flames in humble imitation of its metropolis beyond the
hills. There are men in Belwick who have an angry feeling whenever
Wanley is mentioned to them.

After the inhabitants of the Manor, the most respected of those who
dwelt in Wanley were the Walthams. At the time of which I speak,
this family consisted of a middle-aged lady; her son, of
one-and-twenty; and her daughter, just eighteen. They had resided
here for little more than two years, but a gentility which marked
their speech and demeanour, and the fact that they were well
acquainted with the Eldons, from the first caused them to be looked
up to. It was conjectured, and soon confirmed by Mrs. Waltham's own
admissions, that they had known a larger way of living than that to
which they adapted themselves in the little house on the side of
Stanbury Hill, whence they looked over the village street. Mr.
Waltham had, in fact, been a junior partner in a Belwick firm, which
came to grief. He saved enough out of the wreck to: make a modest
competency for his family, and would doubtless in time have