’Dorothy, it is not at all becoming that you should have a correspondence with any young man of such a nature that you should be ashamed to shew it to your aunt.’

‘I am not ashamed of anything,’ said Dorothy sturdily.

‘I don’t know what young women in these days have come to,’ continued Miss Stanbury.  ’There is no respect, no subjection, no obedience, and too often no modesty.’

‘Does that mean me, Aunt Stanbury?’ asked Dorothy.

’To tell you the truth, Dorothy, I don’t think you ought to have been receiving love-letters from Brooke Burgess when I was lying ill in bed.  I didn’t expect it of you.  I tell you fairly that I didn’t expect it of you.’

Then Dorothy spoke out her mind.  ’As you think that, Aunt Stanbury, I had better go away.  And if you please I will when you are well enough to spare me.’

‘Pray don’t think of me at all,’ said her aunt.

’And as for love-letters, Mr Burgess has written to me once.  I don’t think that there can be anything immodest in opening a letter when it comes by the post.  And as soon as I had it I determined to shew it to you.  As for what happened before, when Mr Burgess spoke to me, which was long, long after all that about Mr Gibson was over, I told him that it couldn’t be so; and I thought there would be no more about it.  You were so ill that I could not tell you.  Now you know it all.’

‘I have not seen your letter to him.’

’I shall never shew it to anybody.  But you have said things, Aunt Stanbury, that are very cruel.’

‘Of course!  Everything I say is wrong.’

’You have told me that I was telling untruths, and you have called me immodest.  That is a terrible word.’

‘You shouldn’t deserve it then.’

’I never have deserved it, and I won’t bear it.  No; I won’t.  If Hugh heard me called that word, I believe he’d tear the house down.’

‘Hugh, indeed!  He’s to be brought in between us is he?’

’He’s my brother, and of course I’m obliged to think of him.  And if you please, I’ll go home as soon as you are well enough to spare me.’

Quickly after this there were many letters coming and going between the house in the Close and the ladies at Nuncombe Putney, and Hugh Stanbury, and Brooke Burgess.  The correspondent of Brooke Burgess was of course Miss Stanbury herself.  The letters to Hugh and to Nuncombe Putney were written by Dorothy.  Of the former we need be told nothing at the present moment; but the upshot of all poor Dolly’s letters was, that on the tenth of March she was to return home to Nuncombe Putney, share once more her sister’s bed and mother’s poverty, and abandon the comforts of the Close.  Before this became a definite arrangement Miss Stanbury had given way in a certain small degree.  She had acknowledged that Dorothy had intended no harm.  But this was not enough for Dorothy, who was conscious of no harm either done or intended.