ppy
now?"

"Well,--miss."

"She is strong again; is she not?"

"Sir Peter says she is getting well; and Mr. Martin--; but Mr. Martin
isn't much account."

"She eats and drinks again?"

"Pretty well;--not as it used to be, you know, miss. I tell her she
ought to go somewheres,--but she don't like moving nohow. She never
did. I tell her if she'd go to Dawlish,--just for a week. But she
don't think there's a bed fit to sleep on, nowhere, except just her
own."

"She would go if Sir Peter told her."

"She says that these movings are newfangled fashions, and that the
air didn't use to want changing for folk when she was young. I heard
her tell Sir Peter herself, that if she couldn't live at Exeter,
she would die there. She won't go nowheres, Miss Dorothy. She ain't
careful to live."

"Tell me something, Martha; will you?"

"What is it, Miss Dorothy?"

"Be a dear good woman now, and tell me true. Would she be better if I
were with her?"

"She don't like being alone, miss. I don't know nobody as does."

"But now, about Mr. Brooke, you know."

"Yes, Mr. Brooke! That's it."

"Of course, Martha, I love him better than anything in all the world.
I can't tell you how it was, but I think I loved him the very first
moment I saw him."

"Dear, dear, dear!"

"I couldn't help it, Martha;--but it's no good talking about it, for
of course I shan't try to help it now. Only this,--that I would do
anything in the world for my aunt,--except that."

"But she don't like it, Miss Dorothy. That is the truth, you know."

"It can't be helped now, Martha; and of course she'll be told at
once. Shall I go and tell her? I'd go to-day if you think she would
like it."

"And Mr. Brooke?"

"He is to go to-morrow."

"And will you leave him here?"

"Why not? Nobody will hurt him. I don't mind a bit about having him
with me now. But I can tell you this. When he went away from us once
it made me very unhappy. Would Aunt Stanbury be glad to see me,
Martha?"

Martha's reserve was at last broken down, and she expressed herself
in strong language. There was nothing on earth her mistress wanted so
much as to have her favourite niece back again. Martha acknowledged
that there were great difficulties about Brooke Burgess, and she did
not see her way clearly through them. Dorothy declared her purpose of
telling her aunt boldly,--at once. Martha shook her head, admiring
the honesty and courage, but doubting the result. She understood
b