He would want
to marry her and make a lady of her; she could hardly dare to shape
the thought--yet how else could it be? Marry her quite secretly, as Mr.
James, the doctor's assistant, married the doctor's niece, and nobody
ever found it out for a long while after, and then it was of no use to
be angry. The doctor had told her aunt all about it in Hetty's hearing.
She didn't know how it would be, but it was quite plain the old Squire
could never be told anything about it, for Hetty was ready to faint with
awe and fright if she came across him at the Chase. He might have been
earth-born, for what she knew. It had never entered her mind that he
had been young like other men; he had always been the old Squire at whom
everybody was frightened. Oh, it was impossible to think how it would
be! But Captain Donnithorne would know; he was a great gentleman, and
could have his way in everything, and could buy everything he liked. And
nothing could be as it had been again: perhaps some day she should be
a grand lady, and ride in her coach, and dress for dinner in a brocaded
silk, with feathers in her hair, and her dress sweeping the ground, like
Miss Lydia and Lady Dacey, when she saw them going into the dining-room
one evening as she peeped through the little round window in the lobby;
only she should not be old and ugly like Miss Lydia, or all the same
thickness like Lady Dacey, but very pretty, with her hair done in a
great many different ways, and sometimes in a pink dress, and sometimes
in a white one--she didn't know which she liked best; and Mary Burge and
everybody would perhaps see her going out in her carriage--or rather,
they would HEAR of it: it was impossible to imagine these things
happening at Hayslope in sight of her aunt.
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