’And now, my dear, you must take a glass of port wine.  It will do you good after your journey.’

Dorothy attempted to explain that she never did drink any wine, but her aunt talked down her scruples at once.

’One glass of port wine never did anybody any harm, and as there is port wine, it must be intended that somebody should drink it.’

Miss Stanbury, as she sipped hers out very slowly, seemed to enjoy it very much.  Although May had come, there was a fire in the grate, and she sat with her toes on the fender, and her silk dress folded up above her knees.  She sat quite silent in this position for a quarter of an hour, every now and then raising her glass to her lips.  Dorothy sat silent also.  To her, in the newness of her condition, speech was impossible.

‘I think it will do,’ said Miss Stanbury at last.

As Dorothy had no idea what would do, she could make no reply to this.

‘I’m sure it will do,’ said Miss Stanbury, after another short interval.  ’You’re as like my poor sister as two eggs.  You don’t have headaches, do you?’

Dorothy said that she was not ordinarily affected in that way.

’When girls have headaches it comes from tight-lacing, and not walking enough, and carrying all manner of nasty smells about with them.  I know what headaches mean.  How is a woman not to have a headache, when she carries a thing on the back of her poll as big as a gardener’s wheel-barrow?  Come, it’s a fine evening, and we’ll go out and look at the towers.  You’ve never even seen them yet, I suppose?’

So they went out, and finding the verger at the Cathedral door, he being a great friend of Miss Stanbury, they walked up and down the aisles, and Dorothy was instructed as to what would be expected from her in regard to the outward forms of religion.  She was to go to the Cathedral service on the morning of every week-day, and on Sundays in the afternoon.  On Sunday mornings she was to attend the little church of St. Margaret.  On Sunday evenings it was the practice of Miss Stanbury to read a sermon in the dining-room to all of whom her household consisted.  Did Dorothy like daily services?  Dorothy, who was more patient than her brother, and whose life had been much less energetic, said that she had no objection to going to church every day when there was not too much to do.

‘There never need be too much to do to attend the Lord’s house,’ said Miss Stanbury, somewhat angrily.

‘Only if you’ve got to make the beds,’ said Dorothy.

‘My dear, I beg your pardon,’ said Miss Stanbury.  ’I beg your pardon, heartily.  I’m a thoughtless old woman, I know.  Never mind.  Now, we’ll go in.’

Later in the evening, when she gave her niece a candlestick to go to bed, she repeated what she had said before.

’It’ll do very well, my dear.  I’m sure it’ll do.  But if you read in bed either night or morning, I’ll never forgive you.’