Mr. O'Brien and his daughter were complete contrasts to each other. He was a stout, gray-haired man with a pleasant, genial countenance, though it was not without its lines of care. Mrs. Baxter, on the contrary, had a long melancholy face and anxious blue eyes. Her black gown clung to her thin figure in limp folds; her features were not bad, and a little liveliness and expression would have made her a good-looking woman; but her dejected air and want of colouring detracted from her comeliness, and of late years her voice had grown peevish as well as plaintive, as though her troubles had been too heavy for her. Audrey had a sincere respect for her; but she certainly wished that Mrs. Baxter took a less lugubrious view of life. At times she would try to infuse a little of her own cheerfulness; but she soon found that Mrs. Baxter was too closely wrapped in her melancholy. In her own language, she preferred the house of mourning to the house of feasting. 'Oh, I hope there is nothing fresh the matter!' repeated Audrey, whose clear-sighted sympathy was never at fault. She thought that Mr. O'Brien's genial face looked a shade graver than usual. 'Come and sit down, Miss Ross, and I will be hurrying the girl with the tea,' observed Mrs. Baxter mournfully, for she was never too lachrymose to be hospitable, and though she shed tears on slight occasions, she was always disposed to press her hot buttered cakes on her guests, and any refusal to taste her good cheer would have grievously wounded her bruised sensibilities. 'Father, take Miss Ross into the best parlour while I help Hannah a bit.' And as Mr. O'Brien laid aside his pipe and led the way into the house, Audrey followed him, nothing loath. 'Joe's been troubling Priscilla again,' he observed, as Audrey seated herself on the little horsehair sofa beside the open window, and Buff, a great tortoise-shell cat, jumped uninvited on her lap and began purring loudly. 'Joe!' repeated Audrey in a shocked voice; she knew very well who was meant. Joe was the ne'er-do-well of a son-in-law whose iniquities had transformed the young and comely Priscilla into the meagre and colourless Mrs. Baxter. 'He has no right to trouble her!' she went on indignantly. 'He has been worrying for money again,' returned Mr. O'Brien, ruffling up his gray hair in a discontented fashion; 'he says he is hard up. But that is only one of Joe's lies; he tells lies by the peck. He had a good coat on, and looked as thriving as possible, and I know from Atkinson, who has been in Leeds, that he is a traveller to some house in the wine trade. And yet he comes here, the bullying rascal! fretting the poor lass to skin and bone with pretending he can take the law of her for not living with him, and that after all his ill-usage.' 'I am so sorry,' returned Audrey, and her tone said more than her words. 'He is a bad man, a thoroughly heartless and bad man--everyone knows that; and she must never go back to him. I hope you told him so.'