Martha have dictated the will herself, she would still have made Hugh the heir; but she had realised the resolution of her mistress so far as to confess that the bulk of the property was to go back to a Burgess.  But there were very many Burgesses; and here was the one who had been selected, flying in the very face of the testatrix!  What was to be done?  Were she to go back and not tell her mistress that she had seen Brooke Burgess at Nuncombe, then, should the fact be found out, would the devoted anger of Miss Stanbury fall upon her own head?  It would be absolutely necessary that she should tell the story, let the consequences be what they might; but the consequences, probably, would be very dreadful.  ’Mr Brooke, that is not you?’ she said, as she came up to him, putting her basket down in the middle of the dusty road.

‘Then who can it be?’ said Brooke, giving her his hand to shake.

’But what do bring you here, Mr Brooke?  Goodness me, what will missus say?’

‘I shall make that all straight.  I’m going back to Exeter tomorrow.’  Then there were many questions and many answers.  He was sojourning at Mrs Crocket’s, and had been there for the last two days.  ’Dear, dear, dear,’ she said over and over again.  ‘Deary me, deary me!’ and then she asked him whether it was ‘all along of Miss Dorothy’ that he had come.  Of course, it was all along of Miss Dorothy.  Brooke made no secret about it.  He had come down to see Dorothy’s mother and sister, and to say a bit of his own mind about future affairs and to see the beauties of the country.  When he talked about the beauties of the country, Martha looked at him as the people of Lessboro’ and Nuncombe Putney should have looked at Colonel Osborne, when he talked of the church porch at Cockchaffington.  ’Beauties of the countries, Mr Brooke you ought to be ashamed of yourself!’ said Martha.

‘But I ain’t the least in the world,’ said Brooke.

Then Martha took up her basket, and went on to the cottage, which had been close in sight during their conversation in the road.  She felt angry with Dorothy.  In such matters a woman is always angry with the woman who has probably been quite passive, and rarely with the man, who is ever the real transgressor.  Having a man down after her at Nuncombe Putney!  It had never struck Martha as very horrible that Brooke Burgess should fall in love with Dorothy in the city, but this meeting, in the remoteness of the country, out of sight even of the village, was almost indecent; and all, too, with Miss Stanbury’s will just, as one might say, on the balance!  Dorothy ought to have buried herself rather than have allowed Brooke to see her at Nuncombe Putney; and Dorothy’s mother and Priscilla must be worse.  She trudged on, however, with her lamb, and soon found herself in the presence of the three ladies.

‘What Martha!’ said Dorothy.

’Yes, miss here I am.  I’d have been here half-an-hour ago amost, if I hadn’t been stopped on the road.’