She did not specify her terms, or require specifically
that her aunt should make apology for that word, immodest,
or at least withdraw it; but she resolved that she
would go unless it was most absolutely declared to
have been applied to her without the slightest reason.
She felt, moreover, that her aunt’s house ought
to be open to Brooke Burgess, and that it could not
be open to them both. And so she went having resided
under her aunt’s roof between nine and ten months.
‘Good-bye, Aunt Stanbury,’ said Dorothy,
kissing her aunt, with a tear in her eye and a sob
in her throat.
‘Good-bye, my dear, good-bye.’ And
Miss Stanbury, as she pressed her niece’s hand,
left in it a bank-note.
‘I’m much obliged, aunt; I am indeed;
but I’d rather not.’ And the bank-note
was left on the parlour table.
DOROTHY AT HOME
Dorothy was received at home with so much affection
and such expressions of esteem as to afford her much
consolation in her misery. Both her mother and
her sister approved of her conduct. Mrs Stanbury’s
approval was indeed accompanied by many expressions
of regret as to the good things lost. She was
fully alive to the fact that life in the Close at
Exeter was better for her daughter than life in their
little cottage at Nuncombe Putney. The outward
appearance which Dorothy bore on her return home was
proof of this. Her clothes, the set of her hair,
her very gestures and motions had framed themselves
on town ideas. The faded, wildered, washed-out
look, the uncertain, purposeless bearing which had
come from her secluded life and subjection to her sister
had vanished from her. She had lived among people,
and had learned something of their gait and carriage.
Money we know will do almost everything, and no doubt
money had had much to do with this. It is very
pretty to talk of the alluring simplicity of a clean
calico gown; but poverty will shew itself to be meagre,
dowdy, and draggled in a woman’s dress, let
the woman be ever so simple, ever so neat, ever so
independent, and ever so high-hearted. Mrs Stanbury
was quite alive to all that her younger daughter was
losing. Had she not received two offers of marriage
while she was at Exeter? There was no possibility
that offers of marriage should be made in the cottage
at Nuncombe Putney. A man within the walls of
the cottage would have been considered as much out
of place as a wild bull. It had been matter of
deep regret to Mrs Stanbury that her daughter should
not have found herself able to marry Mr Gibson.
She knew that there was no matter for reproach in
this, but it was a misfortune, a great misfortune.
And in the mother’s breast there had been a
sad, unrepressed feeling of regret that young people
should so often lose their chances in the world through
over-fancifulness, and ignorance as to their own good.
Now when she heard the story of Brooke Burgess, she
