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‘I meant only to stay one night, aunt.’ 
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‘That is nonsense. If I am to part with either of you, I will part with him. You are dearer to me than he is. Dorothy, you do not know how dear to me you are.’ runescape gold farming    

Dorothy immediately fell on her knees at her aunt’s feet, and hid her face in her aunt’s lap. Miss Stanbury twined round her fingers the soft hair, which she loved so well because it was a grace given by God and not bought out of a shop, and caressed the girl’s head, and muttered something that was intended for a prayer. ‘If he will let me, aunt, I will give him up,’ said Dorothy, looking up into her aunt’s face. ‘If he will say that I may, though I shall love him always, he may go.’ runescape gold            

‘He is his own master,’ said Miss Stanbury. ‘Of course he is his own master.’

‘Will you let me return tomorrow just for a few days and then you can talk to him as you please. I did not mean to come to stay. I wished him good-bye because I knew that I should not meet him here.’

‘You always talk of going away, Dorothy, as soon as ever you are in the house. You are always threatening me.’

‘I will come again, the moment you tell me. If he goes in the morning, I will be here the same evening. And I will write to him, Aunt Stanbury, and tell him that he is quite free, quite free, quite free.’

Miss Stanbury made no reply to this, but sat, still playing with her niece’s hair. ‘I think I will go to bed,’ she said at last. ‘It is past ten. You need not go to Nuncombe, Dorothy. Martha shall meet him, and he can see me here. But I do not wish him to stay in the house. You can go over and call on Mrs MacHugh. Mrs MacHugh will take it well of you that you should call on her.’ Dorothy made no further opposition to this arrangement, but kissed her aunt, and went to her chamber.

How was it all to be for her? For the last two days she had been radiant with new happiness. Everything had seemed to be settled. Her lover, in his high-handed way, had declared that in no important crisis of life would he allow himself to be driven out of his way by the fear of what an old woman might do in her will. When Dorothy assured him that not for worlds would she, though she loved him dearly, injure his material prospects, he had thrown it all aside, after a grand fashion, that had really made the girl think that all Miss Stanbury’s money was as nothing to his love for her. She and Priscilla and her mother had been carried away so entirely by Brooke’s oratory as to feel for the time that the difficulties were entirely conquered. But now the aspect of things was so different! Whatever Brooke might owe to Miss Stanbury, she, Dorothy, owed her aunt everything. She would immolate herself if Brooke would only let her. She did not quite understand her aunt’s stubborn opposition; but she knew that there was some great cause for her aunt’s feeling on the matter. There had been a promise made, or an oath sworn, that the property of the Burgess family should not go into the hands of any Stanbury. Dorothy told herself that, were she married, she would be a Stanbury no longer, that her aunt would still comply with the obligation she had fixed for herself; but, nevertheless, she was ready to believe that her aunt might be right. Her aunt had always declared that it should be so; and Dorothy, knowing this, confessed to herself that she should have kept her heart under better control. Thinking of these things, she went to the table where paper and ink and pens had all been prepared for her so prettily, and began her letter to Brooke. ‘Dearest, dearest Brooke.’ But then she thought that this was not a fair keeping of her promise, and she began again. ‘My dear Brooke.’ The letter, however, did not get itself written that night. It was almost impossible for her to write it. ‘I think it will be better for you,’ she had tried to say, ‘to be guided by my aunt.’ But how could she say this when she did not believe it? It was her wish to make him understand that she would never think ill of him, for a moment, if he would make up his mind to abandon her–but she could not find the words to express herself, and she went, at last, to bed, leaving the half-covered paper upon the table.

She went to bed, and cried herself to sleep. It had been so sweet to have a lover, a man of her own, to whom she could say what she pleased, from whom she had a right to ask for counsel and protection, a man who delighted to be near her, and to make much of her. In comparison with her old mode of living, her old ideas of life, her life with such a lover was passed in an elysium. She had entered from barren lands into so rich a paradise! But there is no paradise, as she now found, without apples which must be eaten, and which lead to sorrow. She regretted in this hour that she had ever seen Brooke Burgess. After all, with her aunt’s love and care for her, with her mother and sister near her, with the respect of those who knew her, why should the lands have been barren, even had there been no entrance for her into that elysium? And did it not all result in this, that the elysium to be desired should not be here; that the paradise, without the apples, must be waited for till beyond the grave? It is when things go badly with us here, and for most of us only then, that we think that we can see through the dark clouds into the joys of heaven. But at last she slept, and in her dreams Brooke was sitting with her in Niddon Park with his arm tight clasped round her waist.

She slept so soundly, that when a step crept silently into her room, and when a light was held for awhile over her face, neither the step nor the light awakened her. She was lying with her head back upon the pillow, and her arm hung by the bedside, and her lips were open, and her loose hair was spread upon the pillow. The person who stood there with the light thought that there never had been a fairer sight. Everything there was so pure, so sweet, so good! She was one whose only selfish happiness could come to her from the belief that others loved her. The step had been very soft, and even the breath of the intruder was not allowed to pass heavily into the air, but the light of the candle shone upon the eyelids of the sleeper, and she moved her head restlessly on the pillow. ‘Dorothy, are you awake? Can you speak to me?’

Then the disturbed girl gradually opened her eyes and gazed upwards, and raised herself in her bed, and sat wondering. ‘Is anything the matter, aunt?’ she said.

‘Only the vagaries of an old woman, my pet, of an old woman who cannot sleep in her bed.’

‘But what is it, aunt?’

‘Kiss me, dearest.’ Then, with something of slumber still about her, Dorothy raised herself in her bed, and placed her arm on her aunt’s shoulder and embraced her. ‘And now for my news,’ said Miss Stanbury.

‘What news, aunt? It isn’t morning yet; is it?’

‘No it is not morning. You shall sleep again presently. I have thought of it, and you shall be Brooke’s wife, and I will have it here, and we will all be friends.’

‘What!’

‘You will like that will you not?’

‘And you will not quarrel with him? What am I to say? What am I to do?’ She was, in truth, awake now, and, not knowing what she did, she jumped out of bed, and stood holding her aunt by the arm.

‘It is not a dream,’ said Miss Stanbury.

‘Are you sure that it is not a dream? And may he come here tomorrow?’

‘Of course he will come tomorrow.’

‘And may I see him, Aunt Stanbury?’

‘Not if you go home, my dear.’

‘But I won’t go home. And will you tell him? Oh dear, oh dear! Aunt Stanbury, I do not think that I believe it yet.’

‘You will catch cold, my dear, if you stay there trying to believe it. You have nothing on. Get into bed and believe it there. You will have time to think of it before the morning.’ Then Miss Stanbury went back to her own chamber, and Dorothy was left alone to realise her bliss.

She thought of all her life for the last twelve months, of the first invitation to Exeter, and the doubts of the family as to its acceptance, of her arrival and of her own doubts as to the possibility of her remaining, of Mr Gibson’s courtship and her aunt’s disappointment, of Brooke’s coming, of her love and of his, and then of her departure back to Nuncombe. After that had come the triumph of Brooke’s visit, and then the terrible sadness of her aunt’s displeasure. But now everything was good and glorious. She did not care for money herself. She thought that she never could care much for being rich. But had she made Brooke poor by marrying him, that must always have been to her matter of regret, if not of remorse. But now it was all to be smooth and sweet. Now a paradise was to be opened to her, with no apples which she might not eat, no apples which might not, but still must, be eaten. She thought that it would be impossible that she should sleep again that night; but she did sleep, and dreamed that Brooke was holding her in Niddon Park, tighter than ever.

When the morning came she trembled as she walked down into the parlour. Might it not still be possible that it was all a dream? or what if her aunt should again have changed her purpose? But the first moment of her aunt’s presence told her that there was nothing to fear. ‘How did you sleep, Dorothy?’ said the old lady.

‘Dear aunt, I do not know. Was it all sleep?’

‘What shall we say to Brooke when he comes?’

‘You shall tell him.’

‘No, dearest, you must tell him. And you must say to him that if he is not good to my girl, and does not love her always, and cling to her, and keep her from harm, and be in truth her loving husband, I will hold him to be the most ungrateful of human beings.’ And before Brooke came, she spoke again. ‘I wonder whether he thinks you as pretty as I do, Dolly?’

‘He never said that he thought me pretty at all.’

‘Did he not? Then he shall say so, or he shall not have you. It was your looks won me first, Dolly, like an old fool as I am. It is so pleasant to have a little nature after such a deal of artifice.’ In which latter remarks it was quite understood that Miss Stanbury was alluding to her enemies at Heavitree.