As Mary descended into the hollow, she was struck with the quiet beauty of the scene. The last sun-blaze rushed level along the upper part of the cleft, while the lower part lay in deep shadow. While she was descending a steep slope, with sometimes grass, and sometimes grey rock, by the roadside, the opposite height rose precipitous; and from chinks in its brow, little drips of water fell or oozed down, calling into life ferns, and grass, and ivy, in every moist crevice. Near the top, there were rows of swallow-holes; and the birds were at this moment all at play in the last glow of the summer day, now dipping into the shaded dell, down to the very surface of the water, and then sprinkling the grey precipice with their darting shadows. Below, when Mary reached the bridge, she thought all looked shadowy in more senses than one. The first people she saw were some children, excessively dirty, who were paddling about in a shallow pool, which was now none of the sweetest, having been filled by the spring overflow, and gradually drying up ever since. Mary called to these children from the bridge, to ask where Widow Johnson lived. She could learn nothing more than that she must proceed; for, if the creatures had not been almost too boorish to speak, she could have made nothing of the Yorkshire dialect, on the first encounter. In the narrow street, every window seemed closed, and even the shutters of some. She could see nobody in the first two or three shops that she passed; but, at the baker’s, a woman was sitting at work. On the entrance of a stranger, she looked up in surprise; and, when at the door, to point out the turn down to Widow Johnson’s, she remained there, with her work on her arm, to watch the lady up the street. The doctor, quickening his pace, came up, saying, “Who was that you were speaking to?—A lady wanting Widow Johnson! What a very extraordinary thing! Did you tell her the fever had got there?” “Yes, Sir.” “What did she say?” “She said she must go and nurse them.” “Do you mean that she is going to stay here?” “I suppose so, by her talking of nursing them. She says Widow Johnson is her aunt.” “O! that’s it! I have heard that Mrs. Johnson came of a good family. But what a good creature this must be—that is, if she knows what she is about. If she is off before morning, I shall think it was a vision, dropped down out of the clouds. Eh?” “She is not handsome enough to be an angel, or anything of that kind,” said the baker’s wife. “O! isn’t she? I did not see her face. But it is all the better, if she is not very like an angel. She is all the more likely to stay and nurse the Johnsons. Upon my word, they are lucky people if she does. I must go and pay my respects to her presently.—Do look now—at the doors all along the street, on both sides the way! I have not seen so many people at once for weeks past;—for, you know, I have no time to go to church in these days.”