At last one cheerless March afternoon, Jim, Coming back from the Wednesday round with the cart, entered the farm kitchen, while John Backhouse was still wrangling at one of the other farmhouses of the hamlet about some disputed payment. The old man came in cold and weary, and the sight of the half-tended kitchen and neglected fire--they paid a neighbor to do the housework, as far as the care of her own seven children would let her--suddenly revived in his slippery mind the memory of his niece, who, with all her faults, had had the makings of a housewife, and for whom, in spite of her flouts and jeers, he had always cherished a secret admiration. As he came in he noticed that the door to the left hand, leading into what Westmoreland folk call the ‘house’ or sitting-room of the farm, was open. The room had hardly been used since Mary’s flight, and the few pieces of black oak and shining mahogany which adorned it had long ago fallen from their pristine polish. The geraniums and fuchsias with which she had filled the window all the summer before, had died into dry blackened stalks; and the dust lay heavy on the room, in spite of the well-meant but wholly ineffective efforts of the charwoman next door. The two old men had avoided the place for months past by common consent, and the door into it was hardly ever opened. Now, however, it stood ajar, and old Jim going up to shut it, and looking in, was struck dumb with astonishment. For there on a wooden rocking chair, which had been her mothers favorite seat, sat Mary Backhouse, her feet on the curved brass fender, her eyes staring into the parlor grate. Her clothes, her face, her attitude of cowering chill and mortal fatigue, produced an impression which struck through the old man’s dull senses, and made him tremble so that his hand dropped from the handle of the door. The slight sound roused Mary, and she turned toward him. She said nothing for a few seconds, her hollow black eyes fixed upon him; then with a ghastly smile, and a voice so hoarse as to be scarcely audible, ‘Weel, aa’ve coom back. Ye’d maybe not expect me?’ There was a sound behind on the cobbles outside the kitchen door. ‘Yur feyther!’ cried Jim between his teeth. ‘Gang up-stairs wi’ ye.’ And he pointed to a door in the wall concealing a staircase to the upper story. She sprang up, looked at the door and at him irresolutely, and then stayed where she was, gaunt, pale, fever-eyed, the wreck and ghost of her old self. The steps neared. There was a rough voice in the kitchen, a surprised exclamation, and her father had pushed past his brother into the room. John Backhouse no sooner saw his daughter than his dull weather-beaten face flamed into violence. With an oath he raised the heavy whip he held in his hand and flung himself toward her. ‘Naw, ye’ll not du’at!’ cried Jim, throwing himself with all his feeble strength on to his brother’s arm. John swore and struggled, but the old man stuck like a limpet.