Myles and Mary Heywood, having come to the end of the sloping street, turned a corner to the left, and soon found themselves in another street, quieter, wider, with terraces of small houses on either side, whose monotony was diversified by various chapels, meeting-houses, and schools. Uphill for a short distance, till the street grew wider and the houses better, and Myles and Mary, turning down a side street to the right, emerged upon one side of a wide, open, square space, called Townfield, or the Townfield, and elevated so high that the rest of the town lay below them as in a basin. All along that side of the Townfield where they stood was a row of neat, small houses, each exactly like all the others; the only room for the individuality of the owners making itself apparent being in the arrangement of the little strip of garden spreading before each. Half the Townfield had been cut off, a couple of years ago, to furnish a small park or pleasure-ground; but looking across the open space to the north-west, they could see the old part of the town in its hollow; the old church of the parish on ground almost as high as the Townfield itself; the gilded spire of the town-hall rising ambitiously from the hollow (it chimed a quarter after six with mellow tone as they stood there), and all the other churches and chapels and public buildings strewn here and there about the town. A great cloud of smoke came up and dimmed the air; on every side was a fringe of long chimneys; different big factories were familiar features in the landscape, and formed landmarks to Mary and her brother--had formed landmarks to them from infancy. Away to the north-west were undulating lines of blue, lofty moors. They were part of Blackrigg--that mighty joint of England’s irregular spine. It was not exactly an enlivening prospect, but it had certain beauties of its own; and at least this town, full of rough, busy toilers, had a fitting and harmonious frame in that semicircle of bleak and treeless moors. Mary and Myles went up one of the strips of garden about the middle of the terrace, and opened the door of the house. ‘Pah! how hot and close it feels!’ said Myles, as they closed themselves in. ‘Now I wonder how that lad is!’