low, comfortable room, with great beams running across the ceiling,
and papered with the same paper as the walls--a piece of elegant
luxury which took Molly's fancy mightily! This parlour looked out on
the dark courtyard in which there grew two or three poplars,
straining upwards to the light; and through an open door between the
backs of two houses could be seen a glimpse of the dancing, heaving
river, with such ships or fishing cobles as happened to be moored in
the waters above the bridge.

They placed Sylvia on the broad, old-fashioned sofa, and gave her
water to drink, and tried to still her sobbing and choking. They
loosed her hat, and copiously splashed her face and clustering
chestnut hair, till at length she came to herself; restored, but
dripping wet. She sate up and looked at them, smoothing back her
tangled curls off her brow, as if to clear both her eyes and her
intellect.

'Where am I?--oh, I know! Thank you. It was very silly, but somehow
it seemed so sad!'

And here she was nearly going off again, but Hester said--

'Ay, it were sad, my poor lass--if I may call you so, for I don't
rightly know your name--but it's best not think on it for we can do
no mak' o' good, and it'll mebbe set you off again. Yo're Philip
Hepburn's cousin, I reckon, and yo' bide at Haytersbank Farm?'

'Yes; she's Sylvia Robson,' put in Molly, not seeing that Hester's
purpose was to make Sylvia speak, and so to divert her attention
from the subject which had set her off into hysterics. 'And we came