"And what did Mr. Brooke say to you?" asked Dorothy.

Martha perceived at once that Dorothy was quite radiant. She told her mistress that she had never seen Miss Dorothy look half so comely before. "Laws, ma'am, she brightened up and speckled about, till it did your heart good to see her in spite of all." But this was some time afterwards.

"He didn't say very much," replied Martha, gravely.

"But I've got very much to tell you," continued Dorothy. "I'm engaged to be married to Mr. Brooke, and you must congratulate me. It is settled now, and mamma and my sister know all about it."

Martha, when she was thus asked directly for congratulation, hardly knew at once how to express herself. Being fully aware of Miss Stanbury's objection to the marriage, she could not venture to express her approbation of it. It was very improper, in Martha's mind, that any young woman should have a follower, when the "missus"

didn't approve of it. She understood well enough that, in that matter of followers, privileges are allowed to young ladies which are not accorded to maid servants. A young lady may do things,--have young men to walk and talk with them, to dance with them and embrace them, and perhaps even more than this,--when for half so much a young woman would be turned into the streets without a character. Martha knew all this, and knew also that Miss Dorothy, though her mother lived in a very little cottage, was not altogether debarred, in the matter of followers, from the privileges of a lady. But yet Miss Dorothy's position was so very peculiar! Look at that will,--or, rather, at that embryo will, which might be made any day, which now probably would be made, and which might affect them both so terribly! People who have not got money should not fly in the face of those who have.

Such at least was Martha's opinion very strongly. How could she congratulate Miss Dorothy under the existing circ.u.mstances? "I do hope you will be happy, miss;--that you knows," said Martha, in her difficulty. "And now, ma'am;--miss, I mean," she added, correcting herself, in obedience to Miss Stanbury's direct orders about the present,--"missus has just sent me over with a bit of lamb, and a letter as is here in the basket, and to ask how you is,--and the other ladies."

"We are very much obliged," said Mrs. Stanbury, who had not understood the point of Martha's speech.

"My sister is, I'm sure," said Priscilla, who had understood it.

Dorothy had taken the letter, and had gone aside with it, and was reading it very carefully. It touched her nearly, and there had come tears into both her eyes, as she dwelt upon it. There was something in her aunt's allusion to the condition of unmarried women which came home to her especially. She knew her aunt's past history, and now she knew, or hoped that she knew, something of her own future destiny.

Her aunt was desolate, whereas upon her the world smiled most benignly. Brooke had just informed her that he intended to make her his wife as speedily as possible,--with her aunt's consent if possible, but if not, then without it. He had ridiculed the idea of his being stopped by Miss Stanbury's threats, and had said all this in such fashion that even Priscilla herself had only listened and obeyed. He had spoken not a word of his own income, and none of them had dreamed even of asking him a question. He had been as a G.o.d in the little cottage, and all of them had been ready to fall down and worship him. Mrs. Stanbury had not known how to treat him with sufficient deference, and, at the same time, with sufficient affection. He had kissed them all round, and Priscilla had felt an elation which was hardly intelligible to herself. Dorothy, who was so much honoured, had come to enjoy a status in her mother's estimation very different from that which she had previously possessed, and had grown to be quite beautiful in her mother's eyes.

There was once a family of three ancient maiden ladies, much respected and loved in the town in which they lived. Their manners of life were well known among their friends, and excited no surprise; but a stranger to the locality once asked of the elder why Miss Matilda, the younger, always went first out of the room? "Matilda once had an offer of marriage," said the dear simple old lady, who had never been so graced, and who felt that such an episode in life was quite sufficient to bestow brevet rank. It was believed by Mrs.

Stanbury that Dorothy's honours would be carried further than those of Miss Matilda, but there was much of the same feeling in the bosom of the mother towards the fortunate daughter, who, in the eyes of a man, had seemed goodly enough to be his wife.

With this swelling happiness round her heart, Dorothy read her aunt's letter, and was infinitely softened. "I had gotten somehow to love to see your pretty face." Dorothy had thought little enough of her own beauty, but she liked being told by her aunt that her face had been found to be pretty. "I am very desolate and solitary here," her aunt said; and then had come those words about the state of maiden women;--and then those other words, about women's duties, and her aunt's prayer on her behalf. "Dear Dorothy, be not such an one."

She held the letter to her lips and to her bosom, and could hardly continue its perusal because of her tears. Such prayers from the aged addressed to the young are generally held in light esteem, but this adjuration was valued by the girl to whom it was addressed. She put together the invitation,--or rather the permission accorded to her, to make a visit to Exeter,--and the intimation in the postscript that Martha knew her mistress's mind; and then she returned to the sitting-room, in which Martha was still seated with her mother, and took the old servant apart. "Martha," she said, "is my aunt happy now?"

"Well,--miss."

"She is strong again; is she not?"

"Sir Peter says she is getting well; and Mr. Martin--; but Mr. Martin isn't much account."

"She eats and drinks again?"

"Pretty well;--not as it used to be, you know, miss. I tell her she ought to go somewheres,--but she don't like moving nohow. She never did. I tell her if she'd go to Dawlish,--just for a week. But she don't think there's a bed fit to sleep on, nowhere, except just her own."

"She would go if Sir Peter told her."

"She says that these movings are newfangled fashions, and that the air didn't use to want changing for folk when she was young. I heard her tell Sir Peter herself, that if she couldn't live at Exeter, she would die there. She won't go nowheres, Miss Dorothy. She ain't careful to live."

"Tell me something, Martha; will you?"

"What is it, Miss Dorothy?"

"Be a dear good woman now, and tell me true. Would she be better if I were with her?"

"She don't like being alone, miss. I don't know n.o.body as does."

"But now, about Mr. Brooke, you know."

"Yes, Mr. Brooke! That's it."

"Of course, Martha, I love him better than anything in all the world.

I can't tell you how it was, but I think I loved him the very first moment I saw him."

"Dear, dear, dear!"

"I couldn't help it, Martha;--but it's no good talking about it, for of course I shan't try to help it now. Only this,--that I would do anything in the world for my aunt,--except that."

"But she don't like it, Miss Dorothy. That is the truth, you know."

"It can't be helped now, Martha; and of course she'll be told at once. Shall I go and tell her? I'd go to-day if you think she would like it."

"And Mr. Brooke?"

"He is to go to-morrow."

"And will you leave him here?"

"Why not? n.o.body will hurt him. I don't mind a bit about having him with me now. But I can tell you this. When he went away from us once it made me very unhappy. Would Aunt Stanbury be glad to see me, Martha?"

Martha's reserve was at last broken down, and she expressed herself in strong language. There was nothing on earth her mistress wanted so much as to have her favourite niece back again. Martha acknowledged that there were great difficulties about Brooke Burgess, and she did not see her way clearly through them. Dorothy declared her purpose of telling her aunt boldly,--at once. Martha shook her head, admiring the honesty and courage, but doubting the result. She understood better than did any one else the peculiarity of mind which made her mistress specially anxious that none of the Stanbury family should enjoy any portion of the Burgess money, beyond that which she herself had saved out of the income. There had been moments in which Martha had hoped that this prejudice might be overcome in favour of Hugh; but it had become stronger as the old woman grew to be older and more feeble,--and it was believed now to be settled as Fate. "She'd sooner give it all to old Barty over the way," Martha had once said, "than let it go to her own kith and kin. And if she do hate any human creature, she do hate Barty Burgess." She a.s.sented, however, to Dorothy's proposal; and, though Mrs. Stanbury and Priscilla were astounded by the precipitancy of the measure they did not attempt to oppose it.

"And what am I to do?" said Brooke, when he was told.

"You'll come to-morrow, of course," said Dorothy.

"But it may be that the two of us together will be too many for the dear old lunatic."

"You shan't call her a lunatic, Brooke. She isn't so much a lunatic as you are, to run counter to her, and disobey her, and all that kind of thing."

"And how about yourself?"

"How can I help it, Brooke? It is you that say it must be so."

"Of course it must. Who is to be stayed from doing what is reasonable because an old woman has a bee on her bonnet. I don't believe in people's wills."

"She can do what she likes about it, Brooke."

"Of course she can, and of course she will. What I mean is that it never pays to do this or that because somebody may alter his will, or may make a will, or may not make a will. You become a slave for life, and then your dead tyrant leaves you a mourning-ring, and grins at you out of his grave. All the same she'll kick up a row, I fancy, and you'll have to bear the worst of it."

"I'll tell her the truth; and if she be very angry, I'll just come home again. But I think I'll come home to-morrow any way, so that I'll pa.s.s you on the road. That will be best. She won't want us both together. Only then, Brooke, I shan't see you again."

"Not till June."

"And is it to be really in June?"

"You say you don't like May."

"You are such a goose, Brooke. It will be May almost to-morrow. I shall be such a poor wife for you, Brooke. As for getting my things ready, I shall not bring hardly any things at all. Have you thought what it is to take a body so very poor?"