I liked to read what they liked to read:  what they enjoyed, delighted me; what they approved, I reverenced.  They loved their sequestered home.  I, too, in the grey, small, antique structure, with its low roof, its latticed casements, its mouldering walls, its avenue of aged firs —­ all grown aslant under the stress of mountain winds; its garden, dark with yew and holly —­ and where no flowers but of the hardiest species would bloom —­ found a charm both potent and permanent.  They clung to the purple moors behind and around their dwelling —­ to the hollow vale into which the pebbly bridle-path leading from their gate descended, and which wound between fern-banks first, and then amongst a few of the wildest little pasture-fields that ever bordered a wilderness of heath, or gave sustenance to a flock of grey moorland sheep, with their little mossy-faced lambs:- they clung to this scene, I say, with a perfect enthusiasm of attachment.  I could comprehend the feeling, and share both its strength and truth.  I saw the fascination of the locality.  I felt the consecration of its loneliness:  my eye feasted on the outline of swell and sweep —­ on the wild colouring communicated to ridge and dell by moss, by heath-bell, by flower-sprinkled turf, by brilliant bracken, and mellow granite crag.  These details were just to me what they were to them —­ so many pure and sweet sources of pleasure.  The strong blast and the soft breeze; the rough and the halcyon day; the hours of sunrise and sunset; the moonlight and the clouded night, developed for me, in these regions, the same attraction as for them —­ wound round my faculties the same spell that entranced theirs.

Indoors we agreed equally well.  They were both more accomplished and better read than I was; but with eagerness I followed in the path of knowledge they had trodden before me.  I devoured the books they lent me:  then it was full satisfaction to discuss with them in the evening what I had perused during the day.  Thought fitted thought; opinion met opinion:  we coincided, in short, perfectly.

If in our trio there was a superior and a leader, it was Diana.  Physically, she far excelled me:  she was handsome; she was vigorous.  In her animal spirits there was an affluence of life and certainty of flow, such as excited my wonder, while it baffled my comprehension.  I could talk a while when the evening commenced, but the first gush of vivacity and fluency gone, I was fain to sit on a stool at Diana’s feet, to rest my head on her knee, and listen alternately to her and Mary, while they sounded thoroughly the topic on which I had but touched.  Diana offered to teach me German.  I liked to learn of her:  I saw the part of instructress pleased and suited her; that of scholar pleased and suited me no less.  Our natures dovetailed:  mutual affection —­ of the strongest kind —­ was the result.  They discovered I could draw:  their pencils and colour-boxes were immediately at my service.  My skill, greater in this one point than theirs, surprised and charmed them.  Mary would sit and watch me by the hour together:  then she would take lessons; and a docile, intelligent, assiduous pupil she made.  Thus occupied, and mutually entertained, days passed like hours, and weeks like days.