n to her aunt. "Dear
aunt," she said, "I have been thinking of something."

"It's too late now," said Miss Stanbury.

"I see I've made you very unhappy."

"Of course you have."

"And you think that I'm ungrateful. I'm not ungrateful, and I don't
think that Hugh is."

"Never mind Hugh."

"Only because it seems so hard that you should take so much trouble
about us, and that then there should be so much vexation."

"I find it very hard."

"So I think that I'd better go back to Nuncombe."

"That's what you call gratitude."

"I don't like to stay here and make you unhappy. I can't think that I
ought to have done what you asked me, because I did not feel at all
in that way about Mr. Gibson. But as I have only disappointed you,
it will be better that I should go home. I have been very happy
here,--very."

"Bother!" exclaimed Miss Stanbury.

"I have,--and I do love you, though you won't believe it. But I am
sure I oughtn't to remain to make you unhappy. I shall never forget
all that you have done for me; and though you call me ungrateful, I
am not. But I know that I ought not to stay, as I cannot do what you
wish. So, if you please, I will go back to Nuncombe."

"You'll not do anything of the kind," said Miss Stanbury.

"But it will be better."

"Yes, of course; no doubt. I suppose you're tired of us all."

"It is not that I'm tired, Aunt Stanbury. It isn't that at all."
Dorothy had now become red up to the roots of her hair, and her eyes
were full of tears. "But I cannot stay where people think that I
am ungrateful. If you please, Aunt Stanbury, I will go." Then, of
course, there was a compromise. Dorothy did at last consent to remain
in the Close, but only on condition that she should be forgiven for
her sin in reference to Mr. Gibson, and be permitted to go on with
her aunt's cap.

CHAPTER XXXVII.

MONT CENIS.

[Illustration]

The night had been fine and warm, and it was now noon on a fine
September day when the train from Paris reached St. Michael, on the
route to Italy by Mont Cenis,--as all the world knows St. Michael
is, or was a year or two back, the end of railway travelling in
that direction. At the time Mr. Fell's grand project of carrying a
line of rails over the top of the mountain was only in preparation,
and the journey from St. Michael to Susa was still made by the
diligences,--those dear old continental coaches which are now nearly
as extinct as our own, but which did not