"Pray, God, don't quite starve us, and let everybody else have indigestion. We don't say it out loud, but there it is; and the spirit of it might damp the orange blossoms."
She went of course, and the orange blossoms were not damped. She had long walks with her sister round by Niddon and Ridleigh, and even as far distant as Cockchaffington, where much was said about that wicked Colonel as they stood looking at the porch of the church. "I shall be so happy," said Dorothy, "when you and mother come to us. It will be such a joy to me that you should be my guests."
"But we shall not come."
"Why not, Priscilla?"
"I know it will be so. Mamma will not care for going, if I do not go."
"And why should you not come?"
"For a hundred reasons, all of which you know, Dolly. I am stiff, impracticable, ill-conditioned, and very bad at going about visiting. I am always thinking that other people ought to have indigestion, and perhaps I might come to have some such feeling about you and Brooke."
"I should not be at all afraid of that."
"I know that my place in the world is here, at Nuncombe Putney. I have a pride about myself, and think that I never did wrong but once,—when I let mamma go into that odious Clock House. It is a bad pride, and yet I'm proud of it. I haven't got a gown fit to go and stay with you, when you become a grand lady in Exeter. I don't doubt you'd give me any sort of gown I wanted."
"Of course I would. Ain't we sisters, Pris?"