She stood by the window, looking out over the dreary² landscape, a woman of some twenty-five years, with an earnest, even melancholy³ face, in which the wistful brown eyes were undoubtedly⁴ the redeeming⁵ feature. Jones' Hill, taken at its best, in full parade uniform of summer green, was not renowned⁷ for beauty or picturesqueness⁸, and now, in fatigue⁹ dress of sodden¹⁰ brown stubble, with occasional patches of dingy¹² white in ditches and hollows and along the edges of the dark pine woods, was even less calculated to inspire the beholder¹³ with enthusiasm. Still, that would hardly account for the shadow which rested upon Thirza Bradford's face. She ought, in fact, to have worn a cheerful countenance¹⁴. One week before she had been a poor girl, dependent upon the labor¹⁵ of her hand for her daily bread; to-day she was sole possessor of a farm of considerable extent, the comfortable old house at one of whose windows she was now standing¹⁶, and all that house's contents.