"Do you love me, Dorothy?"
"Only think how ill Aunt Stanbury is, Mr. Burgess;—perhaps dying! How can I have any thought now except about her? It wouldn't be right;—would it?"
"You may say that you love me."
"Mr. Burgess, pray, pray don't speak of it now. If you do I must go away."
"But do you love me?"
"Pray, pray don't, Mr. Burgess!"
There was nothing more to be got from her during the whole day than that. He told her in the evening that as soon as Miss Stanbury was well, he would come again;—that in any case he would come again. She sat quite still as he said this, with a solemn face,—but smiling at heart, laughing at heart, so happy! When she got up to leave him, and was forced to give him her hand, he seized her in his arms and kissed her. "That is very, very wrong," she said, sobbing, and then ran to her room,—the happiest girl in all Exeter. He was to start early on the following morning, and she knew that she would not be forced to see him again. Thinking of him was so much pleasanter than seeing him!