for their
employments and their play. Her occupation, every summer's day, was
serving out the waters from a mineral spring, a good deal frequented by
sick people, three miles from her house, on the way to Gainsborough.
She set off, after an early breakfast, in the cool of the morning, and
generally arrived at the hill-side where the spring was, and had
unlocked her little shed, and taken out her glasses, and rinsed them,
before any travellers passed. It was rarely indeed that a sick person
had to wait a minute for her appearance. There she sat, in her shed
when it rained, and under a tree when it was fine, sewing or knitting
very diligently when no customers appeared, and now and then casting a
glance over the Levels to the spot where her husband's mill rose in the
midst of the green fields, and where she almost fancied sometimes that
she could see the children sitting on the mill-steps, or working in the
garden. When customers appeared, she was always ready in a moment to
serve them; and her smile cheered those who were sick, and pleased those
who came merely from curiosity. She slipped the halfpence she received
into a pocket beneath her apron; and sometimes the pocket was such a
heavy one to carry three miles home, that she just stepped aside to the
village shop at Haxey, or into a farm-house where the people would be
going to market next day, to get her copper exchanged for silver. Since
the times had become so troubled as they were now, however, she had
avoided showing her money anywhere on the road. Her husband's advice
was that she should give up attending the spring altogether; but she
gained so much money by it, and it was so likely that somebody would
step into her place there as soon as she gave it up, so that she would
not be able to regain her office when quieter times should come, that
she entreated him to allow her to go on while she had no fears. She
took the heavy gold ear-rings out of her ears, wore a plainer cap, and
left her large silver watch at home; so that she looked like a poor
woman whom no needy soldier or bold thief would think of robbing. She
guessed by the sun what was the right time for locking up her glasses
and going home; and she commonly met her husband, coming to fetch her,
before she had got half-way.

The three children were sure to be perched on the top of the quarry
bank, or on the mill-steps, or out on the roof of the house, at the top
of the winding staircase. Little