"Oh, my dear, I am so glad, so very glad, to hear you say so," said Mrs. Dodd. "But why glad, Cecilia?" "My love, your brother and I thought it _was_ so, and that you encouraged him. Has he spoken to you yet? He has said nothing to John." "Spoken, Cecilia, to me; about what?" "This is affectation, dear; you can't pretend to be blind to what is apparent to all of us." "Oh, Cecilia, how can you?" sobbed the vicar's sister, blushing to her ears and burying her face in her pillows. For forty years Anastatia Dodd had lived in maiden meditation fancy free. True, she had taken a lively interest in all her brother's curates, but it was always a professional interest and purely Platonic. But now she blushed, blushed as she had never blushed before. What woman is displeased at hearing that she has an admirer? Who among us would fail to believe what we have, perhaps, secretly wished for in our heart of hearts? That arch Machiavel, the vicar's wife, did not leave her sister-in-law till she was thoroughly convinced that Diggory Warrender was only waiting a favourable opportunity to make her a formal offer of his hand and heart. All this was sufficiently exciting to poor Miss Dodd, but what was her horror, her horror mingled with astonishment, when she heard that, like the heroines in the story books, she too had a detested rival. Till now Anastatia Dodd had not known what it was to detest anybody, but her sister-in-law pointed out to her that detestation was her duty; that Miss Hood was but a ravening and roaring lion seeking to devour the old squire, and then to pick his bones. Unconsciously, as she stood by her sister-in-law's bed, Cecilia Dodd assumed the awful pose, the statuesque attitude, of the Judith at the bedside of Holofernes of her former days; her hand, as it grasped the brass ball at the foot of the bed, seemed to be clutching the head of her victim. Poor Anastatia, as a hare nestles in its form, had almost shrunk beneath the bed-clothes. "It is your duty, my dear," said Judith, "to rescue this man from the hands of the harpy at The Warren. He has evidently loved you for years, Anastatia; _it is your duty_; and your brother feels deeply in the matter, more deeply than I do, my dear; we are but weak women, he is a clergyman, and, I regret to add, a man of the world. You must, of course, give Mr. Warrender every encouragement. And do not forget that your brother is the head of the family, the master of this house, a clergyman, and a man of the world. _He_ will not see you wronged." The vicar's wife left the room and her trembling victim. The voice of duty called her to the kitchen, where her cook patiently awaited her inevitable, and always painful, audience.