It was summer-time, six months later, and mowers and haymakers were at work in the meads.

The manor-house, being opposite them, frequently formed a peg for conversation during these operations; and the doings of the squire, and the squire's young wife, the curate's sister--who was at present the admired of most of them, and the interest of all--met with their due amount of criticism.
Rosa was happy, if ever woman could be said to be so.

She had not learnt the fate of her father, and sometimes wondered--perhaps with a sense of relief--why he did not write to her from his supposed home in Canada.

Her brother Joshua had been presented to a living in a small town, shortly after her marriage, and Cornelius had thereupon succeeded to the vacant curacy of Narrobourne.
These two had awaited in deep suspense the discovery of their father's body; and yet the discovery had not been made.

Every day they expected a man or a boy to run up from the meads with the intelligence; but he had never come.