The Wheeling daily register. [volume] (Wheeling, W. Va.) 1864-1878, 1869-01-22
HE KNEW he WAS RIGHT.
BY ANTHONY TROLLoPE.
Continued
CHAPTER XXI.
SHOWING HOW MISS sTANBURY BEHAVED
TO HER TWO NIECES.

SHOWING HOW MISS SlAENDSRA D''AA' 80.
TO HER TWO NIECEs.
The triumph of Miss Stanbury when
she received her niece's letter was Ger
tainly very great,-so great that In lts
first flush she could not restrain herself
from exhibiting it to Dorothy. well,
-well,-what do you think, Dolly 7"
"About what, auntf 1 don't know
who the letter is from"
"Nobody writes to me now so con-
otont nc vour sister Priscilla. The letter
Is from Priscilla. Colonel Osborne has
.been at the Clock House, after all
Gnev that he would be there. L knew
it! knew it," 49,,
Dorothy, when she heard this, was
dnmbfnnnded. She had rested Fer de-
fence of her mother and sister on the
imnossibility of any such visit being ad-
United According to her lights the
coming of Colonel Osborne, after all that
had been said, would be like the coming
of Incifer himself. Tho Colonel was, to
her imagination, a horrible roaring lion.
She had no idea that the erratic ma
nmuyres of such beast might be MID
er and more innocent than the woolng
of any turtle-dOve. She wonld nave
asked whether the roaring lion had
gone away again, and, II so, whether ne
had taken his prey with him, were 1t
not that she was too much frightened at
the moment to ask any question. That
her mother and sister should have been
wilfully concerned in such iniquity was
unite Incredible to her, but yet she did
not know how to defend them.
"But are you quite sure of 1t, Aunt
Stanbury May there not be another
mistake 7"
"No mistake this time, l think, my
dear. Any way, Priscilla says that he
is there"
Now in this there was mistake.
Priscilla had said nothing of the kind.
"You don't meanto say that he is at
the Clock House, Aunt Stanbury I"
az don't know where he is now. Pm
not his keeper. Aud, Pm glad to say,
Pm not the lady's keeper, either. An,
me! It's q bad business. You can't
touch pitch and not be defled, my dear
Ifyour mother wanted the Clock House,
/ would sooner have taken it for her my
self than that all this should have hap
pened,-for the family's sake"
But Miss Stanbury, when SIZE was
alone, and when she had read her nlece's
three letters again and again, began 70
understand something OF Prlscllias
honesty, and began also TO perceive
that there might have been great dit'
fculty respecting the Colonel, for when
neither her niece nor her slSter-ln. law
could fairly be held to be responsible
1t was perhaps the plainest character
.istic of all the Stanburys, that they
were never wilfully dishonest. lgnor
ant, prejudiced, and passionate they
might be. In her anger Miss Stanbury
of Exeter, could be almost malicious;
aad her niece at Nuncombe Putney was
very like her aunt. Each could say
most cruel things, most unjust things,
when actuated by q mistaken conscious
ness of perfect right on her own side
But neither of them could lie,-even by
silence. Let an error be brought home
to either of them,-so as TO be acknowl'
edged at homeland the error would
be assuredly confessed aloud. And, IN
deed, with differences in the shades,
Hugh and Dorothy were of the same ma
ture. They were possessed of sweeter
tempers than their aunt and sister, but
they were filled with the same eager
readiness to believe themselves TO be
highland to own themselves to be
wrong to others, when they had been
constrained to make such confession TO
themselves. The chances of life, and
something probably of inner nature,
had made Dorothy mild and Obedient;
whereas, in regard to Hugh, the circum-
stances of his life and disposition had
made him obstinate and sslf-retlcent
n III ~, 70 hp he
same belief in self,-which amounted
almost to conceit,-the same warmth OF
affection, and the same love of justice.
When Miss Stanbury had again perns'
ed the correspondence, and had come to
see, limly, how thisgs had gone ut Nun
combe Putney,-when the conviction
came upon her mind that Priscilla had
entertained a horror as to the coming OF
this Colonel equal to that which she
herself had felt, when her Imagination
painted TO her all that her niece had
suffered, her heart was sOftened soIae-
what. She had declared to Dorothy
that pitch, If touched, would certainly
dehle; aud she had, ut first. intended to
sehd Tue same opinion, couched in very
lopclole words, to her correspondents at
the CLOCK House. They should BOT con-
time to go astray for want of being
told that they were going astrav.
1t must be lodged, too that
there was certain amount of igrabla
wrath in the person OF Miss Stanburv
because her sister in-law had taken IN
Clock House. She had never been told
and had not even condescended to tell
Dorothy whether the house was taken
and paid for by her nephew on behalf OF
his mother, or whether it was paid fol
bv Mr.. TrevClyan on behalf of his wife
In the latter case Mrs. Staubury would
she thought, be little more than an mp,
per servant, or house keeper,-aS she ex.
pressed it to herself. Such an arrange
mentappearedt to her TO be quite disgrace
full in Stanbury; but yet she believed
that such must be the existing arrange