Miss Stanbury, looking out of her parlour window, saw Mr Gibson hurrying towards the cathedral, down the passage which leads from Southernhay into the Close. ‘He’s just come from Heavitree, I’ll be bound,’ said Miss Stanbury to Martha, who was behind her.

‘Like enough, ma’am.’

‘Though they do say that the poor fool of a man has become quite sick of his bargain already.’

‘He’ll have to be sicker yet, ma’am,’ said Martha.

‘They were to have been married last week, and nobody ever knew why it was put off. It’s my belief he’ll never marry her. And she’ll be served right, quite right.’

‘He must marry her now, ma’am. She’s been buying things all over Exeter, as though there was no end of their money.’

‘They haven’t more than enough to keep body and soul together,’ said Miss Stanbury. ‘I don’t see why I mightn’t have gone to service this morning, Martha. It’s quite warm now out in the Close.’

‘You’d better wait, ma’am, till the east winds is over. She was at Puddock’s only the day before yesterday, buying bed-linen, the finest they had, and that wasn’t good enough.’

‘Psha!’ said Miss Stanbury.

‘As though Mr Gibson hadn’t things of that kind good enough for her,’ said Martha.

Then there was silence in the room for awhile. Miss Stanbury was standing at one window, and Martha at the other, watching the people as they passed backwards and forwards, in and out of the Close. Dorothy had now been away at Nuncombe Putney for some weeks, and her aunt felt her loneliness with a heavy sense of weakness. Never had she entertained a companion in the house who had suited her as well as her niece, Dorothy. Dorothy would always listen to her, would always talk to her, would always bear with her. Since Dorothy had gone, various letters had been interchanged between them. Though there had been anger about Brooke Burgess, there had been no absolute rupture; but Miss Stanbury had felt that she could not write and beg her niece to come back to her. She had not sent Dorothy away. Dorothy had chosen to go, because her aunt had bad an opinion of her own as to what was fitting for her heir; and as Miss Stanbury would not give up her opinion, she could not ask her niece to return to her. Such had been her resolution, sternly expressed to herself a dozen times during these solitary weeks; but time and solitude had acted upon her, and she longed for the girl’s presence in the house. ‘Martha,’ she said at last, ‘I think I shall get you to go over to Nuncombe Putney.’

‘Again, ma’am?’

‘Why not again? It’s not so far, I suppose, that the journey will hurt you.’

‘I don’t think it’d hurt me, ma’am, only what good will I do?’

‘If you’ll go rightly to work, you may do good. Miss Dorothy was a fool to go the way she did, a great fool.’

‘She stayed longer than I thought she would, ma’am.’

‘I’m not asking you what you thought. I’ll tell you what. Do you send Giles to Winslow’s, and tell them to send in early tomorrow a nice fore-quarter of lamb. Or it wouldn’t hurt you if you went and chose it yourself.’

‘It wouldn’t hurt me at all, ma’am.’

‘You get it nice, not too small, because meat is meat at the price things are now; and how they ever see butcher’s meat at all is more than I can understand.’

‘People as has to be careful, ma’am, makes a little go a long way.’

‘You get it a good size, and take it over in a basket. It won’t hurt you, done up clean in a napkin.’

‘It won’t hurt me at all, ma’am.’

‘And you give it to Miss Dorothy with my love. Don’t you let ’em think I sent it to my sister-inlaw.’

‘And is that to be all, ma’am?’

‘How do you mean all?’

‘Because, ma’am, the railway and the carrier would take it quite ready, and there would be a matter of ten or twelve shillings saved in the journey.’

‘Whose affair is that?’

‘Not mine, ma’am, of course.’

‘I believe you’re afraid of the trouble, Martha. Or else you don’t like going because they’re poor.’

‘It ain’t fair, ma’am, of you to say so, that it ain’t. All I ask is, is that to be all? When I’ve giv’em the lamb, am I just to come away straight, or am I to say anything? It will look so odd if I’m just to put down the basket and come away without e’er a word.’

‘Martha!’

‘Yes, ma’am.’

‘You’re a fool.’

‘That’s true, too, ma’am.’

‘It would be like you to go about in that dummy way, wouldn’t it, and you that was so fond of Miss Dorothy.’

‘I was fond of her, ma’am.’

‘Of course you’ll be talking to her and why not? And if she should say anything about returning —’

‘Yes, ma’am.’

‘You can say that you know her old aunt wouldn’t wouldn’t refuse to have her back again. You can put it your own way, you know. You needn’t make me find words for you.’

‘But she won’t, ma’am.’

‘Won’t what?’

‘Won’t say anything about returning.’

‘Yes, she will, Martha, if you talk to her rightly.’ The servant didn’t reply for a while, but stood looking out of the window. ‘You might as well go about the lamb at once, Martha.’

‘So I will, ma’am, when I’ve got it out, all clear.’

‘What do you............