"I never doubted her coming, ma'am," said Martha.
"And I mean her to stay, unless it's her own fault. She'll have the small room up-stairs, looking out front, next to mine. And you must go and fetch her."
"Go and fetch her, ma'am?"
"Yes. If you won't, I must."
"She ain't a child, ma'am. She's twenty-five years old, and surely she can come to Exeter by herself, with a railroad all the way from Lessboro'."
"There's no place a young woman is insulted in so bad as those railway carriages, and I won't have her come by herself. If she is to live with me, she shall begin decently at any rate."
Martha argued the matter, but was of course beaten, and on the day fixed started early in the morning for Nuncombe Putney, and returned in the afternoon to the Close with her charge. By the time that she had reached the house she had in some degree reconciled herself to the dangerous step that her mistress had taken, partly by perceiving that in face Dorothy Stanbury was very like her brother Hugh, and partly, perhaps, by finding that the young woman's manner to herself was both gentle and sprightly. She knew well that gentleness alone, without some back-bone of strength under it, would not long succeed with Miss Stanbury. "As far as I can judge, ma'am, she's a sweet young lady," said Martha, when she reported her arrival to her mistress, who had retired up-stairs to her own room, in order that she might thus hear a word of tidings from her lieutenant, before she showed herself on the field of action.
"Sweet! I hate your sweets," said Miss Stanbury.
"Then why did you send for her, ma'am?"
"Because I was an old fool. But I must go down and receive her, I suppose."