out my
niece, Dolly Stanbury?"

"I think that she's an uncommonly nice girl."

"She's not to be nice for you, young man. She's to be married to Mr.
Gibson."

"Are they engaged?"

"Well, no; but I intend that they shall be. You won't begrudge that I
should give my little savings to one of my own name?"

"You don't know me, Aunt Stanbury, if you think that I should
begrudge anything that you might do with your money."

"Dolly has been here a month or two. I think it's three months since
she came, and I do like her. She's soft and womanly, and hasn't taken
up those vile, filthy habits which almost all the girls have adopted.
Have you seen those Frenches with the things they have on their
heads?"

"I was speaking to them yesterday."

"Nasty sluts! You can see the grease on their foreheads when they try
to make their hair go back in the dirty French fashion. Dolly is not
like that;--is she?"

"She is not in the least like either of the Miss Frenches."

"And now I want her to become Mrs. Gibson. He is quite taken."

"Is he?"

"Oh dear, yes. Didn't you see him the other night at dinner and
afterwards? Of course he knows that I can give her a little bit of
money, which always goes for something, Brooke. And I do think it
would be such a nice thing for Dolly."

"And what does Dolly think about it?"

"There's the difficulty. She likes him well enough; I'm sure of that.
And she has no stuck-up ideas about herself. She isn't one of those
who think that almost nothing is good enough for them. But--"

"She has an objection."

"I don't know what it is. I sometimes think she is so bashful and
modest she doesn't like to talk of being married,--even to an old
woman like me."

"Dear me! That's not the way of the age;--is it, Aunt Stanbury?"

"It's coming to that, Brooke, that the girls will ask the men soon.
Yes,--and that they won't take a refusal either. I do believe that
Camilla French did ask Mr. Gibson."

"And what did Mr. Gibson say?"

"Ah;--I can't tell you that. He knows too well what he's about to
take her. He's to come here on Friday at eleven, and you must be out
of the way. I shall be out of the way too. But if Dolly says a word
to you before that, mind you make her understand that she ought to
accept Gibson."

"She's too good for him, according to my thinking."

"Don't you be a fool. How can any young woman be too good for
a gentleman and a clergyman? Mr. Gibson is a gentleman. Do you
know,--on