‘And what did Mr Gibson say?’

’Ah I can’t tell you that.  He knows too well what he’s about to take her.  He’s to come here on Friday at eleven, and you must be out of the way.  I shall be out of the way too.  But if Dolly says a word to you before that, mind you make her understand that she ought to accept Gibson.’

‘She’s too good for him, according to my thinking.’

’Don’t you be a fool.  How can any young woman be too good for a gentleman and a clergyman?  Mr Gibson is a gentleman.  Do you know, only you must not mention this, that I have a kind of idea we could get Nuncombe Putney for him.  My father had the living, and my brother; and I should like it to go on in the family.’

No opportunity came in the way of Brooke Burgess to say anything in favour of Mr Gibson to Dorothy Stanbury.  There did come to be very quickly a sort of intimacy between her and her aunt’s favourite; but she was one not prone to talk about her own affairs.  And as to such an affair as this, a question as to whether she should or should not give herself in marriage to her suitor, she, who could not speak of it even to her own sister without a blush, who felt confused and almost confounded when receiving her aunt’s admonitions and instigations on the subject, would not have endured to hear Brooke Burgess speak on the matter.  Dorothy did feel that a person easier to know than Brooke had never come in her way.  She had already said as much to him as she had spoken to Mr Gibson in the three months that she had made his acquaintance.  They had talked about Exeter, and about Mrs MacHugh, and the cathedral, and Tennyson’s poems, and the London theatres, and Uncle Barty, and the family quarrel.  They had become quite confidential with each other on some matters.  But on this heavy subject of Mr Gibson and his proposal of marriage not a word had been said.  When Brooke once mentioned Mr Gibson on the Thursday morning, Dorothy within a minute had taken an opportunity of escaping from the room.

But circumstances did give him an opportunity of speaking to Mr Gibson.  On the Wednesday afternoon both he and Mr Gibson were invited to drink tea at Mrs French’s house on that evening.  Such invitations at Exeter were wont to be given at short dates, and both the gentlemen had said that they would go.  Then Arabella French had called in the Close and had asked Miss Stanbury and Dorothy.  It was well understood by Arabella that Miss Stanbury herself would not drink tea at Heavitree.  And it may be that Dorothy’s company was not in truth desired.  The ladies both declined.  ‘Don’t you stay at home for me, my dear,’ Miss Stanbury said to her niece.  But Dorothy had not been out without her aunt since she had been at Exeter, and understood perfectly that it would not be wise to commence the practice at the house of the Frenches.  ’Mr Brooke is coming, Miss Stanbury; and Mr Gibson,’ Miss French said.  And Miss Stanbury had thought that there was some triumph in her tone.  ’Mr Brooke can go where he pleases, my dear,’ Miss Stanbury replied.  ’And as for Mr Gibson, I am not his keeper.’  The tone in which Miss Stanbury spoke would have implied great imprudence, had not the two ladies understood each other so thoroughly, and had not each known that it was so.