At this juncture the back door was heard to open. Some one entered, and in the pause made by Myles in his reading there was distinctly audible a heavy sigh--almost a groan. Glances were exchanged between Myles and Mary; both looked as if they braced themselves to meet some ordeal. Edmund’s face darkened visibly. ‘Is that you, mother?’ called out Mary cheerfully. ‘Ay, it’s me!’ replied a rather grating voice--a voice high, though not loud, and complaining in the midst of an ostentatious resignation. ‘Go on, Myles!’ said Edmund, in an undertone. ‘Can’t, my lad. You know mother can’t abide it.’ ‘Why am I never to have a bit o’ pleasure? It’s precious little as I get,’ grumbled the lad, as he turned away, and lay with his face concealed. ‘See, lad! Tak’ the book, and read for thysel’,’ said Myles, who indulged in a tolerably broad dialect when in the bosom of his family. Edmund shrugged his shoulders irritably and made a gesture of aversion. Myles closed the book, rising from the side of the couch and going to the table, as a woman came in from the back kitchen--a small, sharp-featured woman, comely yet, with a bright cheek and a dark eye. She was the mother of all those tall children, though she was only five-and-forty, having been married, as too many of her class do marry, at eighteen. The great wonder was that she had remained a widow so long, for in addition to good looks, clever fingers, and a stirring disposition, she possessed property to the extent of thirty pounds per annum left by a rich relation to her years ago. An ignorant observer, looking at the family party just now, would have said what a good-looking, prosperous, well-to-do party they were. But Mrs. Heywood had scarcely spoken yet. ‘Evenin’, mother,’ said her eldest son, civilly, but, it must be owned, hardly cordially. ‘Good evenin’,’ she returned, in her high-pitched, dubious voice. ‘What! you’ve managed to get th’ tea ready, lass? But I know what that means. Just twice as much tea in the pot as we’ve any need for, or as I should ‘a put in mysel’. Waste, waste, on every side!’ As this was Mrs. Heywood’s invariable remark when she came in from her occasional day’s sewing at one of the large houses of the neighbourhood and found the tea prepared, it excited neither comment nor indignation, and the excellent woman, seating herself, cast a sharp, discontented look around, as if wishing that some one would give her an opportunity of saying something disagreeable. ‘Eh, bi’ the mass! It is some and hot! If some folks had to walk as far as me, mayhap they’d understand what I feel at this moment.’