frost set in. For up in the north there is an idea
that the ice stored in the first frost will melt, and the meat cured
then taint; the first frost is good for nothing but to be thrown
away, as they express it.

There came a breathing-time after this last event. The house had had
its last autumn cleaning, and was neat and bright from top to
bottom, from one end to another. The turf was led; the coal carted
up from Monkshaven; the wood stored; the corn ground; the pig
killed, and the hams and head and hands lying in salt. The butcher
had been glad to take the best parts of a pig of Dame Robson's
careful feeding; but there was unusual plenty in the Haytersbank
pantry; and as Bell surveyed it one morning, she said to her husband--

'I wonder if yon poor sick chap at Moss Brow would fancy some o' my
sausages. They're something to crack on, for they are made fra' an
old Cumberland receipt, as is not known i' Yorkshire yet.'

'Thou's allays so set upo' Cumberland ways!' said her husband, not
displeased with the suggestion, however. 'Still, when folk's sick
they han their fancies, and maybe Kinraid 'll be glad o' thy
sausages. I ha' known sick folk tak' t' eating snails.'

This was not complimentary, perhaps. But Daniel went on to say that
he did not mind if he stepped over with the sausages himself, when
it was too late to do anything else. Sylvia longed to offer to
accompany her father; but, somehow, she did not like to propose it.
Towards dusk she came to her mother to ask for the key of the great
bureau that stood in the house-place as a state piece of furniture,
although its use was to contain the family's best wearing apparel,
and stores of linen, such as might be supposed to be more needed
upstairs.

'What for do yo' want my keys?' asked Bell.

'Only just to get out one of t' damask napkins.'

'The best napkins, as my mother span?'

'Yes!' said Sylvia, her colour heightening. 'I thought as how it
would set off t' sausages.'

'A good clean homespun cloth will serve them better,' said Bell,
wondering in her own mind what was come over the girl, to be
thinking of setting off sausages that were to be eaten, not to be
looked at like a picture-book. She might have wondered still more,
if she had seen Sylvia steal round to the little flower border she
had persuaded Kester to make under the wall at the sunny side of the
house, and gather the two or three Michaelmas daisies, and the one
bud of the China rose, that,