A woman stands at the great wool-wheel, one arm extended, the other holding the thread, her head thrown back to take in all the scope of her occupation; or if it is the lesser spinning-wheel for flax--and it was this that Sylvia moved forwards to-night--the pretty sound of the buzzing, whirring motion, the attitude of the spinner, foot and hand alike engaged in the business--the bunch of gay coloured ribbon that ties the bundle of flax on the rock--all make it into a picturesque piece of domestic business that may rival harp-playing any day for the amount of softness and grace which it calls out.
Sylvia's cheeks were rather flushed by the warmth of the room after the frosty air.

The blue ribbon with which she had thought it necessary to tie back her hair before putting on her hat to go to market had got rather loose, and allowed her disarranged curls to stray in a manner which would have annoyed her extremely, if she had been upstairs to look at herself in the glass; but although they were not set in the exact fashion which Sylvia esteemed as correct, they looked very pretty and luxuriant.

Her little foot, placed on the 'traddle', was still encased in its smartly buckled shoe--not slightly to her discomfort, as she was unaccustomed to be shod in walking far; only as Philip had accompanied them home, neither she nor Molly had liked to go barefoot.

Her round mottled arm and ruddy taper hand drew out the flax with nimble, agile motion, keeping time to the movement of the wheel.

All this Philip could see; the greater part of her face was lost to him as she half averted it, with a shy dislike to the way in which she knew from past experience that cousin Philip always stared at her.