The thing was coming so near to her that Dorothy began to feel that she must, in truth, make up her mind, and let her aunt know also how it had been made up.  She was sensible enough to perceive that if she did not prepare herself for the occasion she would find herself hampered by an engagement simply because her aunt had presumed that it was out of the question that she should not acquiesce.  She would drift into marriage with Mr Gibson against her will.  Her greatest difficulty was the fact that her aunt clearly had no doubt on the subject.  And as for herself, hitherto her feelings did not, on either side, go beyond doubts.  Assuredly it would be a very good thing for her to become Mrs Gibson, if only she could create for herself some attachment for the man.  At the present moment her aunt said nothing more about Mr Gibson, having her mind much occupied with the coming of Mr Brooke Burgess.

’I remember him twenty years ago and more; as nice a boy as you would wish to see.  His father was the fourth of the brothers.  Dear, dear!  Three of them are gone; and the only one remaining is old Barty, whom no one ever loved.’

The Burgesses had been great people in Exeter, having been both bankers and brewers there, but the light of the family had paled; and though Bartholomew Burgess, of whom Miss Stanbury declared that no one had ever loved him, still had a share in the bank, it was well understood in the city that the real wealth in the firm of Cropper and Burgess belonged to the Cropper family.  Indeed the most considerable portion of the fortune that had been realised by old Mr Burgess had come into the possession of Miss Stanbury herself.  Bartholomew Burgess had never forgiven his brother’s will, and between him and Jemima Stanbury the feud was irreconcileable.  The next brother, Tom Burgess, had been a solicitor at Liverpool, and had done well there.  But Miss Stanbury knew nothing of the Tom Burgesses as she called them.  The fourth brother, Harry Burgess, had been a clergyman, and this Brooke Burgess, Junior, who was now coming to the Close, had been left with a widowed mother, the eldest of a large family.  It need not now be told at length how there had been ill-blood also between this clergyman and the heiress.  There had been attempts at friendship, and at one time Miss Stanbury had received the Rev. Harry Burgess and all his family at the Close but the attempts had not been successful; and though our old friend had never wavered in her determination to leave the money all back to some one of the Burgess family, and with this view had made a pilgrimage to London some twelve years since, and had renewed her acquaintance with the widow and the children, still there had been no comfortable relations between her and any of the Burgess family.  Old Barty Burgess, whom she met in the Close, or saw in the High Street every day of her life, was her great enemy.  He had tried his best so at least she was convinced to drive her out of the pale of society, years upon years