ation.] Dorothy will be ready
to go to you on any day you may fix after the 7th of this
month.

Believe me to remain,
Your affectionate sister-in-law,

P. STANBURY.

"She's going to come," said Miss Stanbury to Martha, holding the
letter in her hand.

"I never doubted her coming, ma'am," said Martha.

"And I mean her to stay, unless it's her own fault. She'll have the
small room up-stairs, looking out front, next to mine. And you must
go and fetch her."

"Go and fetch her, ma'am?"

"Yes. If you won't, I must."

"She ain't a child, ma'am. She's twenty-five years old, and surely
she can come to Exeter by herself, with a railroad all the way from
Lessboro'."

"There's no place a young woman is insulted in so bad as those
railway carriages, and I won't have her come by herself. If she is to
live with me, she shall begin decently at any rate."

Martha argued the matter, but was of course beaten, and on the day
fixed started early in the morning for Nuncombe Putney, and returned
in the afternoon to the Close with her charge. By the time that she
had reached the house she had in some degree reconciled herself to
the dangerous step that her mistress had taken, partly by perceiving
that in face Dorothy Stanbury was very like her brother Hugh, and
partly, perhaps, by finding that the young woman's manner to herself
was both gentle and sprightly. She knew well that gentleness alone,
without some back-bone of strength under it, would not long succeed
with Miss Stanbury. "As far as I can judge, ma'am, she's a sweet
young lady," said Martha, when she reported her arrival to her
mistress, who had retired up-stairs to her own room, in order that
she might thus hear a word of tidings from her lieutenant, before she
showed herself on the field of action.

"Sweet! I hate your sweets," said Miss Stanbury.

"Then why did you send for her, ma'am?"

"Because I was an old fool. But I must go down and receive her, I
suppose."

Then Miss Stanbury went down, almost trembling as she went. The
matter to her was one of vital importance. She was going to change
the whole tenour of her life for the sake,--as she told herself,--of
doing her duty by a relative whom she did not even know. But we may
fairly suppose that there had in truth been a feeling beyond that,
which taught her to desire to have some one near her to whom she
might not only do her duty as guardian, but whom she might also love.
She had tried this