Old Mary Jones by Harriet Myrtle — Read

In that part of North Wales which borders on England there are many beautiful grassy hills, often wooded half way up their sides, and lovely green valleys between them. The hills are not too high or rugged to be easily climbed in a morning's walk, and it is delightful to rest on their tops. The air is very fresh; there is a scent of wild thyme growing among the grass on which you tread, and a wide view over all the neighbouring country.

A large and pleasant old house, partly overgrown with ivy, near the top of one of these hills, was the home of Walter and Lucy Lewis. There were pleasure-grounds and plantations all round the house, and the hill had many walks and terraces cut in it, where there were beautiful places, sometimes among trees, sometimes among heath, and ferns, and gay fox-gloves, and always some new view of the green valley beneath. Mr. Lewis was the landlord of most of the farms that lay near, and of most of the white cottages that peeped out every here and there from some thicket or knoll. He was a kind landlord to all his tenants, and was especially careful of his cottagers. He never let a cottage that was badly built, or inconvenient, or made with only one room in it for a whole family as some cottages are; he always had three rooms at least in his, besides a wash-house, a place for coals and wood, and a pig-sty; and with each he always gave enough ground to grow the vegetables for the family.