a word of Brooke’s proposal to any living being.  At present it was a secret with herself, but a secret so big that it almost caused her bosom to burst with the load that it bore.  She could not, she thought, write to Priscilla till she had told her aunt.  If she were to write a word on the subject to any one, she could not fail to make manifest the extreme longing of her own heart.  She could not have written Brooke’s name on paper, in reference to his words to herself without covering it with epithets of love.  But all that must be known to no one if her love was to be of no avail to her.  And she had an idea that her aunt would not wish Brooke to marry her, would think that Brooke should do better; and she was quite clear that in such a matter as this her aunt’s wishes must be law.  Had not her aunt the power of disinheriting Brooke altogether?  And what then if her aunt should die, should die now, leaving Brooke at liberty to do as he pleased?  There was something so distasteful to her in this view of the matter that she would not look at it.  She would not allow herself to think of any success which might possibly accrue to herself by reason of her aunt’s death.  Intense as was the longing in her heart for permission from those in authority over her to give herself to Brooke Burgess, perfect as was the earthly Paradise which appeared to be open to her when she thought of the good thing which had befallen her in that matter, she conceived that she would be guilty of the grossest ingratitude were she in any degree to curtail even her own estimate of her aunt’s prohibitory powers because of her aunt’s illness.  The remembrance of the words which Brooke had spoken to her was with her quite perfect.  She was entirely conscious of the joy which would he hers, if she might accept those words as properly sanctioned; but she was a creature in her aunt’s hands according to her own ideas of her own duties; and while her aunt was ill she could not even learn what might be the behests which she would be called on to obey.

She was sitting one evening alone, thinking of all this, having left Martha with her aunt, and was trying to reconcile the circumstances of her life as it now existed with the circumstances as they had been with her in the old days at Nuncombe Putney, wondering at herself in that she should have a lover, and trying to convince herself that for her this little episode of romance could mean nothing serious, when Martha crept down into the room to her.  Of late days—­the alteration might perhaps be dated from the rejection of Mr Gibson—­Martha, who had always been very kind, had become more respectful in her manner to Dorothy than had heretofore been usual with her.  Dorothy was quite aware of it, and was not unconscious of a certain rise in the world which was thereby indicated.  ‘If you please, miss,’ said Martha, ’who do you think is here?’

‘But there is nobody with my aunt?’ said Dorothy.