d been as a god in
the little cottage, and all of them had been ready to fall down
and worship him. Mrs. Stanbury had not known how to treat him
with sufficient deference, and, at the same time, with sufficient
affection. He had kissed them all round, and Priscilla had felt an
elation which was hardly intelligible to herself. Dorothy, who was so
much honoured, had come to enjoy a status in her mother's estimation
very different from that which she had previously possessed, and had
grown to be quite beautiful in her mother's eyes.

There was once a family of three ancient maiden ladies, much
respected and loved in the town in which they lived. Their manners
of life were well known among their friends, and excited no surprise;
but a stranger to the locality once asked of the elder why Miss
Matilda, the younger, always went first out of the room? "Matilda
once had an offer of marriage," said the dear simple old lady, who
had never been so graced, and who felt that such an episode in life
was quite sufficient to bestow brevet rank. It was believed by Mrs.
Stanbury that Dorothy's honours would be carried further than those
of Miss Matilda, but there was much of the same feeling in the bosom
of the mother towards the fortunate daughter, who, in the eyes of a
man, had seemed goodly enough to be his wife.

With this swelling happiness round her heart, Dorothy read her aunt's
letter, and was infinitely softened. "I had gotten somehow to love
to see your pretty face." Dorothy had thought little enough of her
own beauty, but she liked being told by her aunt that her face had
been found to be pretty. "I am very desolate and solitary here," her
aunt said; and then had come those words about the state of maiden
women;--and then those other words, about women's duties, and her
aunt's prayer on her behalf. "Dear Dorothy, be not such an one."
She held the letter to her lips and to her bosom, and could hardly
continue its perusal because of her tears. Such prayers from the aged
addressed to the young are generally held in light esteem, but this
adjuration was valued by the girl to whom it was addressed. She put
together the invitation,--or rather the permission accorded to her,
to make a visit to Exeter,--and the intimation in the postscript
that Martha knew her mistress's mind; and then she returned to the
sitting-room, in which Martha was still seated with her mother, and
took the old servant apart. "Martha," she said, "is my aunt ha