’Very kind; too kind.  Only I don’t understand her quite, and then she gets angry with me.  I know she thinks I’m a fool, and that’s the worst of it.’

‘Then, if I were you, I would come home,’ said Priscilla.

‘She’ll never forgive you if you do,’ said Mrs Stanbury.

‘And who need care about her forgiveness?’ said Priscilla.

‘I don’t mean to go home yet, at any rate,’ said Dorothy.  Then there was a knock at the door, and Martha entered with the cake and wine.  ’Miss Stanbury’s compliments, ladies, and she hopes you’ll take a glass of sherry.’  Whereupon she filled out the glasses and carried them round.

‘Pray give my compliments and thanks to my sister Stanbury,’ said Dorothy’s mother.  But Priscilla put down the glass of wine without touching it, and looked her sternest at the maid.

Altogether, the visit was not very successful, and poor Dorothy almost felt that if she chose to remain in the Close she must lose her mother and sister, and that without really making a friend of her aunt.  There had as yet been no quarrel, nothing that had been plainly recognised as disagreeable; but there had not as yet come to be any sympathy, or assured signs of comfortable love.  Miss Stanbury had declared more than once that it would do, but had not succeeded in showing in what the success consisted.  When she was told that the two ladies were gone, she desired that Dorothy might be sent to her, and immediately began to make anxious inquiries.

‘Well, my dear, and what do they think of it?’

‘I don’t know, aunt, that they think very much.’

‘And what do they say about it?’

’They didn’t say very much, aunt.  I was very glad to see mamma and Priscilla.  Perhaps I ought to tell you that mamma gave me back the money I sent her.’

‘What did she do that for?’ asked Miss Stanbury very sharply.

‘Because she says that Hugh sends her now what she wants.’  Miss Stanbury, when she heard this, looked very sour.  ’I thought it best to tell you, you know.’

‘It will never come to any good, got in that way, never.’

‘But, Aunt Stanbury, isn’t it good of him to send it?’

’I don’t know.  I suppose it’s better than drinking, and smoking, and gambling.  But I dare say he gets enough for that too.  When a man, born and bred like a gentleman, condescends to let out his talents and education for such purposes, I dare say they are willing enough to pay him.  The devil always does pay high wages.  But that only makes it so much the worse.  One almost comes to doubt whether any one ought to learn to write at all, when it is used for such vile purposes.  I’ve said what I’ve got to say, and I don’t mean to say anything more.  What’s the use?  But it has been hard upon me very.  It was my money did it, and I feel I’ve misused it.  It’s a disgrace to me which I don’t deserve.’

For a couple of minutes Dorothy remained quite silent, and Miss Stanbury did not herself say anything further.  Nor during that time did she observe her niece, or she would probably have seen that the subject was not to be dropped.  Dorothy, though she was silent, was not calm, and was preparing herself for a crusade in her brother’s defence.