She therefore met his advances kindly but
coldly, a treatment under which his feelings towards her began to
ripen into something a little deeper and more genuine.
During the next ten days or so, Dorothy could not help feeling that
she was regarded by almost every one in the castle as in disgrace,
and that deservedly. The most unpleasant proof she had of this was
the behaviour of the female servants, some of them assuming airs of
injured innocence, others of offensive familiarity in her presence,
while only one, a kitchen-maid she seldom saw, Tom Fool's bride in
the marriage-jest, showed her the same respect as formerly. This
girl came to her one night in her room, and with tears in her eyes
besought permission to carry her meals thither, that she might be
spared eating with the rude ladies, as in her indignation she called
them. But Dorothy saw that to forsake mistress Watson's table would
be to fly the field, and therefore, hateful as it was to meet the
looks of those around it, she did so with unvailed lids and an
enforced dignity which made itself felt.
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