"I am beginning to be thin enough at the top. I am so glad to come to you, and so much obliged to you for having me! How well I remember the old room!"
"This is my niece, Miss Dorothy Stanbury, from Nuncombe Putney." Dorothy was about to make some formal acknowledgment of the introduction, when Brooke Burgess came up to her, and shook her hand heartily. "She lives with me," continued the aunt.
"And what has become of Hugh?" said Brooke.
"We never talk of him," said Miss Stanbury gravely.
"I hope there's nothing wrong? I hear of him very often in London."
"My aunt and he don't agree;—that's all," said Dorothy.
"He has given up his profession as a barrister,—in which he might have lived like a gentleman," said Miss Stanbury, "and has taken to writing for a—penny newspaper."
"Everybody does that now, Miss Stanbury."
"I hope you don't, Mr. Burgess."
"I! Nobody would print anything that I wrote. I don't write for anything, certainly."