they were not of the stuff of which heroines--not to say
martyrs--were made. They looked back almost as fondly and sadly as their
mother looked on the old state of matters. They dreaded with a shrinking
terror going away from home, leaving their people, facing the cold,
critical world, being left to their own slender resources. It was bad
enough in Dora, but it was really dreadfully disappointing in May, with
her youthful learning, to have so little spirit and courage; still so it
was, and in the meantime there was no help for it. Dora might have been
glad for purely personal reasons to get away from Redcross for a time;
but she was not thrown into Tom Robinson's company, and the fact of his
refusal had been kept so quiet by the Millars that, unless he himself
betrayed it, which was not likely, the greatest gossip in the place
could only suspect the truth.

It was a small comfort to the unheroic pair, and perhaps to Annie and
Rose also, though they did not consciously take it into account, that
all the older professional men in the town, the leaders and those who
were on most intimate terms, were "in the same boat," as Dr. Millar had
said. But there was a family named Dyer lately settled at Redcross, a
semi-retired stockbroker, with his wife and daughters, who had come from
London to occupy Redcross Manor-house--naturally they had nothing to do
with Carey's Bank, and were still supposed to be rolling in wealth, as
they had been reported from the first. However, there was a notion that
the Dyers' riches had not been acquired in any very refined fashion.
Cyril Carey had always insisted, as he settled his collar and twirled
his cane, that stockbroker was simply pawnbroker writ large. Anyhow the
Dyers were not so distinguished in mind and manners as they were
wealthy. Old conservative folks sighed at the idea of Redcross
Manor-house, which had belonged to the Cliftons from time immemorial,
till the last Clifton fell into the hands of the Jews before he was
twenty, and was driven to break the entail by the time he was forty,
passing to a family of Dyers. The best that could be said of them was,
that the old people were comparatively inoffensive and the young were
presentable. They were inclined to be friendly with the town--it might
be till they could secure a footing with the county people, if that were
possible. They dressed well, thanks to their milliners and dressmakers,
kept a good table, a good stable, and a good staff