She has been described as young, for her slight and youthful figure gave that impression to all who saw her first, but a closer inspection soon revealed the fact that she must have owned between thirty and forty years. Her face, too, was more worn than might have been expected, although it had preserved much of the delicate beauty of its outline--a beauty, however, so unobtrusive in character that it needed some close attention to observe it. She had the simple attire of a village workman’s wife, without any of the fineries in which the wives of workmen occasionally indulge, a gown of dark stuff, although it was summer time, a rusty black jacket, and a close-fitting bonnet of black straw, already old and limp. The lad could have told the others who she was, although he had not much acquaintance with her himself; and he might also have been able to give some explanation of the look of sadness upon her patient face. This was Jenny Salter, who lived in the village of Warton, who lived by the Thackbusk, and was Rob Salter’s wife. Her appearance was too quiet to maintain the interest she had excited, the curiosity slackened, and the conversation dropped; save when the irrepressible stranger now and then made some remark on the fields or on the cows. Jenny shrank into her corner with her face turned to the window, and her mind occupied with tender yearning over her sick child at home; whilst the lad opposite, who had been disturbed by his looks at her, began turning over in his mind, with some compunction, the thought of a certain ‘rare game’ with which she was connected, and in which, in common with the other lads of the village, he intended to be engaged that night. His compunction did not extend to a renunciation of his purpose, but it made him a little uneasy all the same. And now the train was beginning to slacken speed, and already could be seen the irregular lines of village roofs, the grey church-tower just peeping above the trees on the hill, and, beneath, the red chapel that had been lately built. With the timidity of a nervous nature, Jenny Salter rose to her feet before the train had stopped, and hastened to take her basket on her arm, that she might be found quite ready to descend. The movement recalled to her something that her dress kept concealed, a bruise on her shoulder that a man’s clenched hand had left. As she stepped on to the platform of the station, and looked wearily up the river, aglow with evening light, the sight that she saw was one that might have attracted a mind less preoccupied than her own. For the line of storm-cloud was heavy above the cathedral, and beneath was the glory of an intensely golden radiance, against which the hill that was crowned with cathedral towers stood out as a shadow of deepest purple. Jenny looked on these things, but seeing did not see them; she gave up her ticket, and turned towards the village and her home. CHAPTER II IN THE VILLAGE