Dr. Grey looked terribly hurt, but he and Aunt Maria exchanged one glance and one long hand-clasp.  Whatever debt there was between the brother and sister, love had long since canceled it all.

“Pacify her, Maria—­you know you can.  Make her think better of all this nonsense.  My wife and my sisters could never be rivals; it is ridiculous to suppose such a thing.  But, indeed, I believe we should all be much better friends if you were in your own house at Avonside.”

“I think so, too,” whispered Aunt Maria.  “I have thought so ever so long.”

“Then it is settled,” replied Dr. Grey, in the mild way in which he did sometimes settle things, and after which you might just as well attempt to move him as to move the foundations of St. Bede’s.

It was all so sudden, this total domestic revolution, which yet every body inwardly recognized as a great relief, that for a minute or two nobody found a word more to say, until Miss Gascoigne, who generally had both the first word and the last, broke out again.

“Yes, you have done it, and it shall never be undone, however you may live to repent it.  Dr. Grey, I quit your house, shaking the dust off my feet:  see that it does not rise up in judgment against you.  Maria—­my poor Maria—­your own brother may forsake you, but I never will.  We go away together—­tomorrow.”

“Not tomorrow,” said Dr. Grey.  “Your tenants have only just left, and we must have the cottage made comfortable for you.  Let me see, this is the 8th; suppose we settle that you leave on the 20th of June.  Will that do, Maria?”

As he spoke he took her little fat hand, patted it lovingly, and then kissed her.

“You’ll not be unhappy, sister?  You know it is only going back to the old ways, and to the old country life, which you always liked much better than this.”

“Much—­much better.  You are quite right, as you always are, dear Arnold,”

This was said in a whisper, but Miss Gascoigne caught it.

“Ah! yes, I see what you are doing—­stealing from me the only heart that loves me—­persuading her to stay behind.  Very well.  Do it, Maria.  Remain with your brother and your brother’s wife.  Forget me, who am nothing to any body—­of no use to one creature living.”

Poor woman without meaning it, she had hit upon something very near the truth.  It always is so—­always must be.  People win what they earn; those who sow the wind reap the whirlwind.  Handsome, clever, showy, and admired, as she had been in her day, probably not one living soul did now care for Henrietta Gascoigne except foolish, faithful Aunt Maria.

And yet there must have been some good in her, something worth caring for, even to retain that affection, weak and submissive as it may have been.  Christian’s heart smote her as if she herself had been guilty of injustice toward Miss Gascoigne when she saw Miss Grey creep up to her old friend, the tears flowing like a mill-stream.