’She is sleeping like a babby, and I came down just for a moment.  Mr Gibson is here, miss in the house!  He asked for your aunt, and when, of course, he could not see her, he asked for you.’  Dorothy for a few minutes was utterly disconcerted, but at last she consented to see Mr Gibson.  ‘I think it is best,’ said Martha, ’because it is bad to be fighting, and missus so ill.  “Blessed are the peace-makers,” miss, “for they shall be called the children of God."’ Convinced by this argument, or by the working of her own mind, Dorothy directed that Mr Gibson might be shewn into the room.  When he came, she found herself unable to address him.  She remembered the last time in which she had seen him, and was lost in wonder that he should be there.  But she shook hands with him, and went through some form of greeting in which no word was uttered.

‘I hope you will not think that I have done wrong,’ said he, ’in calling to ask after my old friend’s state of health?’

‘Oh dear, no,’ said Dorothy, quite bewildered.

’I have known her for so very long, Miss Dorothy, that now in the hour of her distress, and perhaps mortal malady, I cannot stop to remember the few harsh words that she spoke to me lately.’

‘She never means to be harsh, Mr Gibson.’

’Ah; well; no perhaps not.  At any rate I have learned to forgive and forget.  I am afraid your aunt is very ill, Miss Dorothy.’

‘She is ill, certainly, Mr Gibson.’

’Dear, dear!  We are all as the grass of the field, Miss Dorothy, here to-day and gone to-morrow, as sparks fly upwards.  Just fit to be cut down and cast into the oven.  Mr Jennings has been with her, I believe?’ Mr Jennings was the other minor canon.

‘He comes three times a week, Mr Gibson.’

’He is an excellent young man, a very good young man.  It has been a great comfort to me to have Jennings with me.  But he’s very young, Miss Dorothy; isn’t he?’ Dorothy muttered something, purporting to declare, that she was not acquainted with the exact circumstances of Mr Jennings’ age.  ’I should be so glad to come if my old friend would allow me,’ said Mr Gibson, almost with a sigh.  Dorothy was clearly of opinion that any change at the present would be bad for her aunt, but she did not know how to express her opinion; so she stood silent and looked at him.  ’There needn’t be a word spoken, you know, about the ladies at Heavitree,’ said Mr Gibson.

‘Oh dear, no,’ said Dorothy.  And yet she knew well that there would be such words spoken if Mr Gibson were to make his way into her aunt’s room.  Her aunt was constantly alluding to the ladies at Heavitree, in spite of all the efforts of her old servant to restrain her.