Page:Wuthering Heights and Agnes Grey (1st edition), Volume 3 (Agnes Grey).djvu/190

182 CHAPTER XII.

next visit I payed to Nancy Brown, was in the second week in March, for, though I had many spare minutes during the day, I seldom could look upon an hour as entirely my own, since, where everything was left to the caprices of Miss Matilda and her sister, there could be no order or regularity, and whatever occupation I chose, when not actually busied about them, or their concerns, I had, as it were, to keep my loins girded, my shoes on my feet, and my staff in my hand; for, not to be immediately forth coming when called for, was