his affections upon her niece, as there had been in her mind a strong desire that none of her own people should enjoy the reversion of the wealth, which she had always regarded as being hers only for the term of her life; but that she had found that the young people had been so much in earnest, and that her own feeling had been so near akin to a prejudice, that she had yielded.  When this was said Barty smiled instead of bowing, and Miss Stanbury felt that there might be something worse even than his silence.  His smile told her that he believed her to be lying.  Nevertheless she went on.  She was not fool enough to suppose that the whole nature of the man was to be changed by a few words from her.  So she went on.  The marriage was a thing fixed, and she was thinking of settlements, and had been talking to lawyers about a new will.

‘I do not know that I can help you,’ said Barty, finding that a longer pause than usual made some word from him absolutely necessary.

’I am going on to that, and I regret that my story should detain you so long, Mr Burgess’ And she did go on.  She had, she said, made some saving out of her income.  She was not going to trouble Mr Burgess with this matter, only that she might explain to him that what she would at once give to the young couple, and what she would settle on Dorothy after her own death, would all come from such savings, and that such gifts and bequests would not diminish the family property.  Barty again smiled as he heard this, and Miss Stanbury in her heart likened him to the devil in person.  But still she went on.  She was very desirous that Brooke Burgess should come and live at Exeter.  His property would be in the town and the neighbourhood.  It would be a seemly thing, such was her word, that he should occupy the house that had belonged to his grandfather and his great-grandfather; and then, moreover, she acknowledged that she spoke selfishly; she dreaded the idea of being left alone for the remainder of her own years.  Her proposition at last was uttered.  It was simply this, that Barty Burgess should give to his nephew, Brooke, his share in the bank.

‘I am damned, if I do!’ said Barty Burgess, rising up from his chair.

But before he had left the room he had agreed to consider the proposition.  Miss Stanbury had of course known that any such suggestion coming from her without an adequate reason assigned, would have been mere idle wind.  She was prepared with such adequate reason.  If Mr Burgess could see his way to make the proposed transfer of his share of the bank business, she, Miss Stanbury, would hand over to him, for his life, a certain proportion of the Burgess property which lay in the city, the income of which would exceed that drawn by him from the business.  Would he, at his time of life, take that for doing nothing which he now got for working hard?  That was the meaning of it.  And then, too, as far as the portion of the property went, and it extended to the houses owned by Miss Stanbury on the bank side of the Close, it would belong altogether to Barty Burgess for his life.  ’It will simply be this, Mr Burgess, that Brooke will be your heir as would be natural.’