Five more years and Jane was a young woman. Amid her companions, who were few of them above the middle size, she had a tall and striking appearance. Her father had been a remarkably tall and strong man, and she possessed something of his stature, though none of his irritable disposition. She was extremely pretty, of a blooming fresh complexion, and graceful form. She was remarkable for the sweetness of her expression, which was the index of her disposition. By her side still went that odd, broad-built, but still pale and little sister. Jane was extremely admired by the young men of the neighbourhood, and had already many offers, but she listened to none. ‘Where I go must Nancy go,’ she said to herself, ‘and of whom can I be sure?’ Of Nancy no one took notice. Her pale, somewhat large features, her thoughtful silent look, and her short, stout figure, gave you an idea of a dwarf, though she could not strictly be called one. No one would think of Nancy as a wife,—where Jane went she must go; the two clung together with one heart and soul. The blow which deprived them of their brother seemed to bind them inseparably together. Mrs. Dunster, besides her seaming, at which, in truth, she earned a miserable sum, had now for some years been the post-woman from the village to the Bull’s Head, where the mail, going on to Tideswell, left the letter-bag. Thither and back, wet or dry, summer or winter, she went every day, the year round. With her earnings, and those of the girls’, she went well with them, as the world kept a neat, small cottage; and the world goes on the average with the poor. Cramps and rheumatisms she began to feel sensibly from so much exposure to rain and cold; but the never-varying and firm affection of her two children was a balm in her cup which made her contented with everything else. When Jane was about two-and-twenty, poor Mrs. Dunster, seized with rheumatic fever, died. On her death-bed she said to Jane, ‘Thou will never desert poor Nancy; and that’s my comfort. God has been good to me. After all my trouble, he has given me this faith, that come weal come woe, so long as thou has a home, Nancy will never want one. God bless thee for it! God bless you both; and he will bless you!’ So saying, Betty Dunster breathed her last.