‘I suppose he is a very good young man,’ she said.

‘I am sure he is a noble, true-hearted man,’ said Priscilla.

’And why shouldn’t he marry whom he pleases, as long as she is respectable?’ said Mrs Stanbury.

‘In some people’s eyes poverty is more disreputable than vice,’ said Priscilla.

‘Your aunt has been so fond of Dorothy,’ pleaded Mrs Stanbury.

‘Just as she is of her servants,’ said Priscilla.

But Dorothy said nothing.  Her heart was too full to enable her to defend her aunt; nor at the present moment was she strong enough to make her mother understand that no hope was to be entertained.  In the course of the day she walked out with her sister on the road towards Ridleigh, and there, standing among the rocks and ferns, looking down upon the river, with the buzz of the little mill within her ears, she explained the feelings of her heart and her many thoughts with a flow of words stronger, as Priscilla thought, than she had ever used before.

’It is not what he would suffer now, Pris, or what he would feel, but what he would feel ten, twenty years hence, when he would know that his children would have been all provided for, had, he not lost his fortune by marrying me.’

’He must be the only judge whether he prefers you to the old woman’s money,’ said Priscilla.

’No, dear; not the only judge.  And it isn’t that, Pris, not which he likes best now, but which it is best for him that he should have.  What could I do for him?’

‘You can love him.’

‘Yes I can do that.’  And Dorothy paused a moment, to think how exceedingly well she could do that one thing.  ’But what is that?  As you said the other day, a dog can do that.  I am not clever.  I can’t play, or talk French, or do things that men like their wives to do.  And I have lived here all my life; and what am I, that for me he should lose a great fortune?’

‘That is his look out.’

’No, dearest, it is mine, and I will look out.  I shall be able, at any rate, to remember always that I have loved him, and have not injured him.  He may be angry with me now,’ and there was a feeling of pride at her heart, as she thought that he would be angry with her, because she did not go to him ’but he will know at last that I have been as good to him as I knew how to be.’

Then Priscilla wound her arms round Dorothy, and kissed her.  ’My sister,’ she said; ‘my own sister!’ They walked on further, discussing the matter in all its bearings, talking of the act of self-denial which Dorothy was called on to perform, as though it were some abstract thing, the performance of which was, or perhaps was not, imperatively demanded by the laws which should govern humanity; but with no idea on the mind of either of them that there was any longer a doubt as to this special matter in hand.  They were away from home over three hours; and, when they returned, Dorothy at once wrote her two letters.  They were very simple, and very short.  She told Brooke, whom she now addressed as ‘Dear Mr Burgess,’ that it could not be as he would have it; and she told her aunt with some terse independence of expression, which Miss Stanbury quite understood, that she had considered the matter, and had thought it right to refuse Mr Burgess’s offer.