al edifice of depressing appearance,
stone-built, wholly without ornament, presenting a corner to the
highway, a chapel-of-ease for worshippers unable to go as far as
Dunfield in the one direction or the village of Pendal in the other.
Scattered about were dwelling-houses old and new; the former being
cottages of the poorest and dirtiest kind, the latter brick structures
of the most unsightly form, evidently aiming at constituting themselves
into a thoroughfare, and, in point of fact, already rejoicing in the
name of Regent Street. There was a public-house, or rather, as it
frankly styled itself in large letters on the window, a dram-shop; and
there were two or three places for the sale of very miscellaneous
articles, exhibiting the same specimens of discouraging stock throughout
the year. At no season, and under no advantage of sky, was Banbrigg a
delectable abode. Though within easy reach of country which was not
without rural aspects, it was marked too unmistakably with the squalor
of a manufacturing district. Its existence impressed one as casual; it
was a mere bit of Dunfield got away from the main mass, and having
brought its dirt with it. The stretch of road between it and the bridge
by which the river was crossed into Dunfield had in its long, hard
ugliness something dispiriting. Though hedges bordered it here and
there, they were stunted and grimed; though fields were seen on this
side and on that, the grass had absorbed too much mill-smoke to exhibit
wholesome verdure; it was fed upon by sheep and cows, seemingly turned
in to be out of the way till needed for slaughter, and by the sorriest
of superannuated horses. The land was blighted by the curse of what we
name--using a word as ugly as the thing it represents--industrialism.

As the cab brought her along this road from Dunfield station, Emily
thought of the downs, the woodlands, the fair pastures of Surrey. There
was sorrow at her heart, even a vague tormenting fear. It would be hard
to find solace in Banbrigg.

Hither her parents had come to live when she was thirteen years old, her
home having previously been in another and a larger manufacturing town.
Her father was a man marked for ill-fortune: it pursued him from his
entrance into the world, and would inevitably--you read it in his
face--hunt him into a sad grave. He was the youngest of a large family;
his very birth had been an added misery to a household struggling with
want. His education was of th