EMIMA STANBURY.

The special vaunted courtesy of this letter consisted, no doubt, in
the expression of respect which it contained, and in that declaration
of affection with which it terminated. The epithet was one which
Miss Stanbury would by no means use promiscuously in writing to her
nearest relatives. She had not intended to use it when she commenced
her letter to Priscilla. But the respect of which she had spoken
had glowed, and had warmed itself into something of temporary love;
and feeling at the moment that she was an affectionate aunt, Miss
Stanbury had so put herself down in her letter. Having done such a
deed she felt that Dorothy, though Dorothy knew nothing about it,
ought in her gratitude to listen patiently to anything that she might
now choose to say against Priscilla.

But Dorothy was in truth very miserable, and in her misery wrote a
long letter that afternoon to her mother,--which, however, it will
not be necessary to place entire among the Stanbury records,--begging
that she might be informed as to the true circumstances of the case.
She did not say a word of censure in regard either to her mother or
sister; but she expressed an opinion in the mildest words which she
could use, that if anything had happened which had compromised their
names since their residence at the Clock House, she, Dorothy, had
better go home and join them. The meaning of which was that it would
not become her to remain in the house in the Close, if the house in
the Close would be disgraced by her presence. Poor Dorothy had taught
herself to think that the iniquity of roaring lions spread itself
very widely.

In the afternoon she made some such proposition to her aunt in
ambiguous terms. "Go home!" said Miss Stanbury. "Now?"

"If you think it best, Aunt Stanbury."

"And put yourself in the middle of all this iniquity and abomination!
I don't suppose you want to know the woman?"

"No, indeed!"

"Or the man?"

"Oh, Aunt Stanbury!"

"It's my belief that no decent gentleman in Exeter would look at you
again if you were to go and live among them at Nuncombe Putney while
all this is going on. No, no. Let one of you be saved out of it, at
least."

Aunt Stanbury had more than once made use of expressions which
brought the faintest touch of gentle pink up to her niece's cheeks.
We must do Dorothy the justice of saying that she had never dreamed
of being looked at by any gentleman, whether decent or indecent. Her
life at