Dinah Craik

“ I assented, to please him.
"Such a nice, nice place, on the slope of Enderley Hill. A cottage— Rose Cottage—for it's all in a bush of cluster-roses, up to the very roof."
"Where is Enderley?"
"Did you never hear of Enderley Flat, the highest tableland in England? Such a fresh, free, breezy spot—how the wind sweeps over it! I can feel it in my face still."
And even the description was refreshing, this heavy, sultry day, with not a breath of air moving across the level valley.
"Shouldn't you like to live on a hill-side, to be at the top of everything, overlooking everything? ”

“ You don't look upon our future habitation as a sort of Avernus?"
John laughed merrily. "No, as I told you before, I like Enderley Hill. I can't tell why, but I like it. It seems as if I had known the place before. I feel as if we were going to have great happiness here."
And as he spoke, his unwonted buoyancy softened into a quietness of manner more befitting that word "happiness." Strange word! hardly in my vocabulary. Yet, when he uttered it, I seemed to understand it and to be content.
We wound a little way down the slope, and came in front of Rose Cottage. It was well named. ”

“ I was to be in charge of the latter; nothing could induce Abel Fletcher to leave, even for a day, his house, his garden, and his tan-yard. We two young men were to set up for a month or two our bachelor establishment at Mrs. Tod's: John riding thrice a-week over to Norton Bury to bring news of me, and to fulfil his duties at the tan-yard. One could see plain enough—and very grateful to me was the sight—that whether or no Abel Fletcher acknowledged it, his right hand in all his business affairs was the lad John Halifax.
On a lovely August day we started for Enderley. ”