Free Ebooks - ELIZABETH GASKELL

ELIZABETH GASKELL

WIVES AND DAUGHTERS

CHAPTER I

THE DAWN OF A GALA DAY

To begin with the old rigmarole of childhood. In a country there was
a shire, and in that shire there was a town, and in that town there
was a house, and in that house there was a room, and in that room
there was a bed, and in that bed there lay a little girl; wide awake
and longing to get up, but not daring to do so for fear of the
unseen power in the next room--a certain Betty, whose slumbers must
not be disturbed until six o'clock struck, when she wakened of
herself 'as sure as clockwork', and left the household very little
peace afterwards. It was a June morning, and early as it was, the
room was full of sunny warmth and light.

On the drawers opposite to the little white dimity bed in which
Molly Gibson lay, was a primitive kind of bonnet-stand on which was
hung a bonnet, carefully covered over from any chance of dust, with
a large cotton handkerchief, of so heavy and serviceable a texture
that if the thing underneath it had been a flimsy fabric of gauze
and lace and flowers, it would have been altogether 'scromfished'
(again to quote from Betty's vocabulary). But the bonnet was made of
solid straw, and its only trimming was a plain white ribbon put over
the crown, and forming the strings. Still, there was a neat little
quilling inside, every plait of which Molly knew, for had she not
made it herself the evening before, with infinite pains? and was
there not a little blue bow in this quilling, the very first bit of
such finery Molly had ever had the prospect of wearing?

Six o'clock now! the pleasant, brisk ringing of the church bells
told that; calling every one to their daily work, as they had done
for hundreds of years. Up jumped Molly, and ran with her bare little
feet across the room, and lifted off the handkerchief and saw once
again the bonnet; the pledge of the gay bright day to come. Then to
the window, and after some tugging she opened the casement, and let
in the sweet morning air. The dew was already off the flowers in the
garden below, but still rising from the long hay-grass in the
meadows directly beyond. At one side lay the little town of
Hollingford, into a street of which Mr. Gibson's front door opened;
and delicate columns, and little puffs of smoke were already
beginning to rise from many a cottage chimney where some housewife
was already up, and preparing breakfast for the bread-winner of the
family.

Molly Gibson saw all this, but all she thought about it was, 'Oh! it
will be a fine day! I was afraid it never, never would come; or
that, if it ever came, it would be a rainy day!' Five-and-forty
years ago, children's pleasures in a country town were very simple,
and Molly had lived for twelve long years without the occurrence of
any event so great as that which was now impending. Poor child! it
is true that she had lost her mother, which was a jar to the whole
tenour of her life; but that was hardly an event in the sense
referred to; and besides, she had been too young to be conscious of
it at the time. The pleasure she was looking forward to to-day was
her first share in a kind of annual festival in Hollingford.

The little straggling town faded away into country on one side close
to the entrance-lodge of a great park, where lived my Lord and Lady
Cumnor 'the earl' and 'the countess', as they were always called by
the inhabitants of the town; where a very pretty amount of feudal
feeling still lingered, and showed itself in a number of simple
ways, droll enough to look back upon, but serious matters of
importance at the time. It was before the passing of the Reform
Bill, but a good deal of liberal talk took place occasionally
between two or three of the more enlightened freeholders living in
Hollingford; and there was a great Tory family in the county who,
from time to time, came forward and contested the election with the
rival Whig family of Cumnor. One would have thought that the
above-mentioned liberal-talking inhabitants would have, at least,
admitted the possibility of their voting for the Hely-Harrison, and
thus trying to vindicate their independence But no such thing. 'The
earl' was lord of the manor, and owner of much of the land on which
Hollingford was built; he and his household were fed, and doctored,
and, to a certain measure, clothed by the good people of the town;
their fathers' grandfathers had always voted for the eldest son of
Cumnor Towers, and following in the ancestral track every man-jack
in the place gave his vote to the liege lord, totally irrespective
of such chimeras as political opinion.

This was no unusual instance of the influence of the great
landowners over humbler neighbours in those days before railways,
and it was well for a place where the powerful family, who thus
overshadowed it, were of so respectable a character as the Cumnors.
They expected to be submitted to, and obeyed; the simple worship of
the townspeople was accepted by the earl and countess as a right;
and they would have stood still in amazement, and with a horrid
memory of the French sansculottes who were the bugbears of their
youth, had any inhabitant of Hollingford ventured to set his will or
opinions in opposition to those of the earl. But, yielded all that
obeisance, they did a good deal for the town, and were generally
condescending, and often thoughtful and kind in their treatment of
their vassals. Lord Cumnor was a forbearing landlord; putting his
steward a little on one side sometimes, and taking the reins into
his own hands now and then, much to the annoyance of the agent, who
was, in fact, too rich and independent to care greatly for
preserving a post where his decisions might any day be overturned by
my lord's taking a fancy to go 'pottering' (as the agent
irreverently expressed it in the sanctuary of his own home), which,
being interpreted, meant that occasionally the earl asked his own
questions of his own tenants, and used his own eyes and ears in the
management of the smaller details of his property. But his tenants
liked my lord all the better for this habit of his. Lord Cumnor had
certainly a little time for gossip, which he contrived to combine
with the failing of personal intervention between the old
land-steward and the tenantry. But, then, the countess made up by
her unapproachable dignity for this weakness of the earl's. Once a
year she was condescending. She and the ladies, her daughters, had
set up a school; not a school after the manner of schools
now-a-days, where far better intellectual teaching is given to the
boys and girls of labourers and workpeople than often falls to the
lot of their betters in worldly estate; but a school of the kind we
should call 'industrial', where girls are taught to sew beautifully,
to be capital housemaids, and pretty fair cooks, and, above all, to
dress neatly in a kind of charity uniform devised by the ladies of
Cumnor Towers;--white caps, white tippets, check aprons, blue gowns,
and ready curtseys, and 'please, ma'ams', being ~de rigueur~.

Now, as the countess was absent from the Towers for a considerable
part of the year, she was glad to enlist the sympathy of the
Hollingford ladies in this school, with a view to obtaining their
aid as visitors during the many months that she and her daughters
were away. And the various unoccupied gentlewomen of the town
responded to the call of their liege lady, and gave her their
service as required; and along with it, a great deal of whispered
and fussy admiration. 'How good of the countess! So like the dear
countess--always thinking of others!' and so on; while it was always
supposed that no strangers had seen Hollingford properly, unless
they had been taken to the countess's school, and been duly
impressed by the neat little pupils, and the still neater needlework
there to be inspected. In return, there was a day of honour set
apart every summer, when with much gracious and stately hospitality,
Lady Cumnor and her daughters received all the school visitors at
the Towers, the great family mansion standing in aristocratic
seclusion in the centre of the large park, of which one of the
lodges was close to the little town. The order of this annual
festivity was this. About ten o'clock one of the Towers' carriages
rolled through the lodge, and drove to different houses, wherein
dwelt a woman to be honoured; picking them up by ones or twos, till
the loaded carriage drove back again through the ready portals,
bowled along the smooth tree-shaded road, and deposited its covey of
smartly-dressed ladies on the great flight of steps leading to the
ponderous doors of Cumnor Towers. Back again to the town; another
picking up of womankind in their best clothes, and another return,
and so on till the whole party were assembled either in the house or
in the really beautiful gardens. After the proper amount of
exhibition on the one part, and admiration on the other, had been
done, there was a collation for the visitors, and some more display
and admiration of the treasures inside the house. Towards four
o'clock, coffee was brought round; and this was a signal of the
approaching carriage that was to take them back to their own homes;
whither they returned with the happy consciousness of a well-spent
day, but with some fatigue at the long-continued exertion of
behaving their best, and talking on stilts for so many hours. Nor
were Lady Cumnor and her daughters free from something of the same
self-approbation, and something, too, of the same fatigue; the
fatigue that always follows on conscious efforts to behave as will
best please the society you are in.

For the first time in her life, Molly Gibson was to be included
among the guests at the Towers. She was much too young to be a
visitor at the school, so it was not on that account that she was to
go; but it had so happened that one day when Lord Cumnor was on a
'pottering' expedition, he had met Mr. Gibson, ~the~ doctor of the
neighbourhood, coming out of the farm-house my lord was entering;
and having some small question to ask the surgeon (Lord Cumnor
seldom passed any one of his acquaintance without asking a question
of some sort--not always attending to the answer; it was his mode of
conversation), he accompanied Mr. Gibson to the out-building, to a
ring in the wall of which the surgeon's horse was fastened. Molly
was there too, sitting square and quiet on her rough little pony,
waiting for her father. Her grave eyes opened large and wide at the
close neighbourhood and evident advance of 'the earl'; for to her
little imagination the grey-haired, red-faced, somewhat clumsy man,
was a cross between an archangel and a king.

'Your daughter, eh, Gibson?--nice little girl, how old? Pony wants
grooming though,' patting it as he talked. 'What's your name, my
dear? He's sadly behindhand with his rent, as I was saying, but if
he's really ill, I must see after Sheepshanks, who is a hardish man
of business. What's his complaint? You'll come to our
school-scrimmage on Thursday, little girl--what's-your-name? Mind
you send her, or bring her, Gibson; and just give a word to your
groom, for I'm sure that pony wasn't singed last year, now, was he?
Don't forget Thursday, little girl--what's your name?--it's a
promise between us, is it not?' And off the earl trotted, attracted
by the sight of the farmer's eldest son on the other side of the
yard.

Mr. Gibson mounted, and he and Molly rode off. They did not speak
for some time. Then she said, 'May I go, papa?' in rather an anxious
little tone of voice.

'Where, my dear?' said he, wakening up out of his own professional
thoughts.

'To the Towers--on Thursday, you know. That gentleman' (she was shy
of calling him by his title) 'asked me.'

'Would you like it, my dear? It has always seemed to me rather a
tiresome piece of gaiety--rather a tiring day, I mean--beginning so
early--and the heat, and all that.'

'Oh, papa!' said Molly reproachfully.

'You'd like to go then, would you?'

'Yes if I may!--He asked me, you know. Don't you think I may?--he
asked me twice over.'

'Well! we'll see--yes! I think we can manage it, if you wish it so
much, Molly.'

Then they were silent again. By-and-by, Molly said:

'Please, papa--I do wish to go--but I don't care about it.'

'That's rather a puzzling speech. But I suppose you mean you don't
care to go, if it will be any trouble to get you there. I can easily
manage it, however, so you may consider it settled. You'll want a
white frock, remember; you'd better tell Betty you're going, and
she'll see after making you tidy.'

Now, there were two or three things to be done by Mr. Gibson, before
he could feel quite comfortable about Molly's going to the festival
at the Towers, and each of them involved a little trouble on his
part. But he was very willing to gratify his little girl; so the
next day he rode over to the Towers, ostensibly to visit some sick
housemaid, but, in reality, to throw himself in my lady's way, and
get her to ratify Lord Cumnor's invitation to Molly. He chose his
time, with a little natural diplomacy; which, indeed, he had often
to exercise in his intercourse with the great family. He rode into
the stable-yard about twelve o'clock, a little before luncheon-time,
and yet after the worry of opening the post-bag and discussing its
contents was over. After he had put up his horse, he went in by the
back-way to the house; the 'House' on this side, the 'Towers' at the
front. He saw his patient, gave his directions to the housekeeper,
and then went out, with a rare wild-flower in his hand, to find one
of the ladies Tranmere in the garden, where, according to his hope
and calculation, he came upon Lady Cumnor too--now talking to her
daughter about the contents of an open letter which she held in her
hand, now directing a gardener about certain bedding-out plants.

'I was calling to see Nanny, and I took the opportunity of bringing
Lady Agnes the plant I was telling her about as growing on Cumnor
Moss.'

'Thank you so much, Mr. Gibson. Mamma, look! this is the ~Drosera
rotundifolia~ I have been wanting so long.'

'Ah! yes; very pretty I daresay, only I am no botanist. Nanny is
better, I hope? We can't have any one laid up next week, for the
house will be quite full of people--and here are the Danbys waiting
to offer themselves as well. One comes down for a fortnight of
quiet, at Whitsuntide, and leaves half one's establishment in town,
and as soon as people know of our being here, we get letters without
end, longing for a breath of country air, or saying how lovely the
Towers must look in spring; and I must own, Lord Cumnor is a great
deal to blame for it all, for as soon as ever we are down here, he
rides about to all the neighbours, and invites them to come over and
spend a few days.'

'We shall go back to town on Friday the 18th,' said Lady Agnes, in a
consolatory tone.

'Ah, yes! as soon as we have got over the school visitors' affair.
But it is a week to that happy day.'

'By the way!' said Mr. Gibson, availing himself of the good opening
thus presented, 'I met my lord at the Cross-trees Farm yesterday,
and he was kind enough to ask my little daughter, who was with me,
to be one of the party here on Thursday; it would give the lassie
great pleasure, I believe.' He paused for Lady Cumnor to speak.

'Oh, well! if my lord asked her, I suppose she must come, but I wish
he was not so amazingly hospitable! Not but what the little girl
will be quite welcome; only, you see, he met a younger Miss Browning
the other day, of whose existence I had never heard.'

'She visits at the school, mamma,' said Lady Agnes.

'Well, perhaps she does; I never said she did not. I knew there was
one visitor of the name of Browning; I never knew there were two,
but, of course, as soon as Lord Cumnor heard there was another, he
must needs ask her; so the carriage will have to go backwards and
forwards four times now to fetch them all. So your daughter can come
quite easily, Mr. Gibson, and I shall be very glad to see her for
your sake. She can sit bodkin with the Brownings, I suppose? You'll
arrange it all with them; and mind you get Nanny well up to her work
next week.'

Just as Mr. Gibson was going away, Lady Cumnor called after him,
'Oh! by-the-bye, Clare is here; you remember Clare, don't you? She
was a patient of yours, long ago.'

'Clare!' he repeated, in a bewildered tone.

'Don't you recollect her? Miss Clare, our old governess,' said Lady
Agnes. 'About twelve or fourteen years ago, before Lady Cuxhaven was
married.'

'Oh, yes!' said he. 'Miss Clare, who had the scarlet fever here; a
very pretty delicate girl. But I thought she was married!'

'Yes!' said Lady Cumnor. 'She was a silly little thing, and did not
know when she was well off; we were all very fond of her, I'm sure.
She went and married a poor curate, and became a stupid Mrs.
Kirkpatrick; but we always kept on calling her 'Clare.' And now he's
dead, and left her a widow, and she is staying here; and we are
racking our brains to find out some way of helping her to a
livelihood without parting her from her child. She's somewhere about
the grounds, if you like to renew your acquaintance with her.'

'Thank you, my lady. I'm afraid I cannot stop to-day. I have a long
round to go; I've stayed here too long as it is, I'm afraid.'

Long as his ride had been that day, he called on the Miss Brownings
in the evening, to arrange about Molly's accompanying them to the
Towers. They were tall handsome women, past their first youth, and
inclined to be extremely complaisant to the widowed doctor.

'Eh dear! Mr. Gibson, but we shall he delighted to have her with us.
You should never have thought of asking us such a thing,' said Miss
Browning the elder.

'I'm sure I'm hardly sleeping at nights for thinking of it,' said
Miss Phoebe. 'You know I've never been there before. Sister has many
a time; but somehow, though my name has been down on the visitors'
list these three years, the countess has never named me in her note;
and you know I could not push myself into notice, and go to such a
grand place without being asked; how could I?'

'I told Phoebe last year,' said her sister, 'that I was sure it was
only inadvertence, as one may call it, on the part of the countess,
and that her ladyship would be as hurt as any one when she didn't
see Phoebe among the school visitors; but Phoebe has got a delicate
mind, you see Mr. Gibson, and for all I could say she wouldn't go,
but stopped here at home; and it spoilt all my pleasure all that
day, I do assure you, to think of Phoebe's face, as I saw it over
the window-blinds, as I rode away; her eyes were full of tears, if
you'll believe me.'

'I had a good cry alter you was gone, Sally,' said Miss Phoebe; 'but
for all that, I think I was right in stopping away from where I was
not asked. Don't you, Mr. Gibson?'

'Certainly,' said he. 'And you see you are going this year; and last
year it rained.'

'Yes! I remember! I set myself to tidy my drawers, to string myself
up, as it were; and I was so taken up with what I was about that I
was quite startled when I heard the rain beating against the
window-panes. 'Goodness me!' said I to myself, 'whatever will become
of sister's white satin shoes, if she has to walk about on soppy
grass after such rain as this?' for, you see, I thought a deal about
her having a pair of smart shoes; and this year she has gone and got
me a white satin pair just as smart as hers, for a surprise.'

'Molly will know she's to put on her best clothes,' said Miss
Browning. 'We could perhaps lend her a few beads, or artificials, if
she wants them.'

'Molly must go in a clean white frock,' said Mr. Gibson, rather
hastily; for he did not admire the Miss Brownings' taste in dress,
and was unwilling to have his child decked up according to their
fancy; he esteemed his old servant Betty's as the more correct,
because the more simple. Miss Browning had just a shade of annoyance
in her tone as she drew herself up, and said, 'Oh! very well. It's
quite right, I'm sure.' But Miss Phoebe said, 'Molly will look very
nice in whatever she puts on, that's certain.'

CHAPTER II

A NOVICE AMONGST THE GREAT FOLK

At ten o'clock on the eventful Thursday the Towers' carriage began
its work. Molly was ready long before it made its first appearance,
although it had been settled that she and the Miss Brownings were
not to go until the last, or fourth, time of its coming. Her face
had been soaped, scrubbed, and shone brilliantly clean; her frills,
her frock, her ribbons were all snow-white. She had on a black mode
cloak that had been her mother's; it was trimmed round with rich
lace, and looked quaint and old-fashioned on the child. For the
first time in her life she wore kid gloves; hitherto she had only
had cotton ones. Her gloves were far too large for the little
dimpled fingers, but as Betty had told her they were to last her for
years, it was all very well. She trembled many a time, and almost
turned faint once with the long expectation of the morning. Berry
might say what she liked about a watched pot never boiling; Molly
never ceased to watch the approach through the winding street, and
after two hours the carriage came for her at last. She had to sit
very forward to avoid crushing the Miss Brownings' new dresses; and
yet not too forward, for fear of incommoding fat Mrs. Goodenough and
her niece, who occupied the front seat of the carriage; so that
altogether the fact of sitting down at all was rather doubtful, and
to add to her discomfort, Molly felt herself to be very
conspicuously placed in the centre of the carriage, a mark for all
the observation of Hollingford. It was far too much of a gala day
for the work of the little town to go forward with its usual
regularity. Maid-servants gazed out of upper windows; shopkeepers'
wives stood on the doorsteps; cottagers ran out, with babies in
their arms; and little children, too young to know how to behave
respectfully at the sight of an earl's carriage, huzzaed merrily as
it bowled along. The woman at the lodge held the gate open, and
dropped a low curtsey to the liveries. And now they were in the
Park; and now they were in sight of the Towers, and silence fell
upon the carriage-full of ladies, only broken by one faint remark
from Mrs. Goodenough's niece, a stranger to the town, as they drew up
before the double semicircle flight of steps which led to the door
of the mansion.

'They call that a perron, I believe, don't they?' she asked. But the
only answer she obtained was a simultaneous 'hush.' It was very
awful, as Molly thought, and she half wished herself at home again.
But she lost all consciousness of herself by-and-by when the party
strolled out into the beautiful grounds, the like of which she had
never even imagined. Green velvet lawns, bathed in sunshine,
stretched away on every side into the finely wooded park; if there
were divisions and ha-has between the soft sunny sweeps of grass,
and the dark gloom of the forest-trees beyond, Molly did not see
them; and the melting away of exquisite cultivation into the
wilderness had an inexplicable charm to her. Near the house there
were walls and fences; but they were covered with climbing roses,
and rare honeysuckles and other creepers just bursting into bloom,
There were flower-beds, too, scarlet, crimson, blue, orange; masses
of blossom lying on the greensward. Molly held Miss Browning's hand
very tight as they loitered about in company with several other
ladies, and marshalled by a daughter of the Towers, who seemed half
amused at the voluble admiration showered down upon every possible
thing and place. Molly said nothing, as became her age and position,
but every now and then she relieved her full heart by drawing a deep
breath, almost like a sigh. Presently they came to the long
glittering range of greenhouses and hothouses, and an attendant
gardener was there to admit the party. Molly did not care for this
half so much as for the flowers in the open air; but Lady Agnes had
a more scientific taste, she expatiated on the rarity of this, and
the mode of cultivation required by that plant, till Molly began to
feel very tired, and then very faint. She was too shy to speak for
some time; but at length, afraid of making a greater sensation if
she began to cry, or if she fell against the stands of precious
flowers, she caught at Miss Browning's hand, and gasped out,--

'May I go back, out into the garden? I can't breathe here!'

'Oh, yes, to be sure, love. I dare say it's hard understanding for
you, love; but it's very fine and instructive, and a deal of Latin
in it too.'

She turned hastily round not to lose another word of Lady Agnes'
lecture on orchids, and Molly turned back and passed out of the
heated atmosphere. She felt better in the fresh air; and unobserved,
and at liberty, went from one lovely spot to another, now in the
open park, now in some shut-in flower-garden, where the song of the
birds, and the drip of the central fountain, were the only sounds,
and the tree-tops made an enclosing circle in the blue June sky; she
went along without more thought as to her whereabouts than a
butterfly has, as it skims from flower to flower, till at length she
grew very weary, and wished to return to the house, but did not know
how, and felt afraid of encountering all the strangers who would be
there, unprotected by either of the Miss Brownings. The hot sun told
upon her head, and it began to ache. She saw a great wide-spreading
cedar-tree upon a burst of lawn towards which she was advancing, and
the black repose beneath its branches lured her thither. There was a
rustic seat in the shadow, and weary Molly sate down there, and
presently fell asleep.

She was startled from her slumbers after a time, and jumped to her
feet. Two ladies were standing by her, talking about her. They were
perfect strangers to her, and with a vague conviction that she had
done something wrong, and also because she was worn-out with hunger,
fatigue, and the morning's excitement, she began to cry.

'Poor little woman! She has lost herself; she belongs to some of the
people from Hollingford, I have no doubt,' said the oldest-looking
of the two ladies; she who appeared to be about forty, although she
did not really number more than thirty years. She was
plain-featured, and had rather a severe expression on her face; her
dress was as rich as any morning dress could be; her voice deep and
unmodulated,--what in a lower rank of life would have been called
gruff; but that was not a word to apply to Lady Cuxhaven, the eldest
daughter of the earl and countess. The other lady looked much
younger, but she was in fact some years the elder; at first sight
Molly thought she was the most beautiful person she had ever seen,
and she was certainly a very lovely woman. Her voice, too, was soft
and plaintive, as she replied to Lady Cuxhaven,--

'Poor little darling! she is overcome by the heat, I have no
doubt--such a heavy straw bonnet, too. Let me untie it for you, my
dear.'

Molly now found voice to say,--'I am Molly Gibson, please. I came
here with the Miss Brownings;' for her great fear was that she
should be taken for an unauthorized intruder.

'The Miss Brownings?' said Lady Cuxhaven to her companion, as if
inquiringly.

'I think they were the two tall large young women that Lady Agnes
was taking about.'

'Oh, I dare say. I saw she had a number of people in tow;' then
looking again at Molly, she said, 'Have you had anything to cat,
child, since you came? You look a very white little thing; or is it
the heat?'

'I have had nothing to eat,' said Molly, rather piteously; for,
indeed, before she fell asleep she had been very hungry.

The two ladies spoke to each other in a low voice; then the elder
said in a voice of authority, which, indeed, she had always used in
speaking to the other, 'Sit still here, my dear; we are going to the
house, and Clare shall bring you something to eat before you try to
walk back; it must be a quarter of a mile at least.' So they went
away, and Molly sate upright, waiting for the promised messenger.
She did not know who Clare might be, and she did not care much for
food now; but she felt as if she could not walk without some help.
At length she saw the pretty lady coming back, followed by a footman
with a small tray.

'Look how kind Lady Cuxhaven is,' said she who was called Clare.
'She chose out this little lunch herself; and now you must try and
eat it, and you'll be quite right when you've had some food,
darling--You need not stop, Edwards; I will bring the tray back with
me.'

There was some bread, and some cold chicken, and some jelly, and a
glass of wine, and a bottle of sparkling water, and a bunch of
grapes; Molly put out her trembling little hand for the water; but
she was too faint to hold it. Clare put it to her mouth, and she
took a long draught and was refreshed. But she could not eat; she
tried, but she could not; her headache was too bad. Clare looked
bewildered. 'Take some grapes, they will be the best for you; you
must try and eat something, or I don't know how I shall get you to
the house.'

'My head aches so,' said Molly, lifting her heavy eyes wistfully.

'Oh, dear, how tiresome!' said Clare, still in her sweet gentle
voice, not at all as if she was angry, only expressing an obvious
truth. Molly felt very guilty and very unhappy. Clare went on, with
a shade of asperity in her tone: 'You see, I don't know what to do
with you here if you don't eat enough to enable you to walk home.
And I've been out for these three hours trapesing about the grounds
till I'm as tired as can be, and missed my lunch and all.' Then, as
if a new idea had struck her, she said,--'You lie back in that seat
for a few minutes, and try to eat the bunch of grapes, and I'll wait
for you, and just be eating a mouthful meanwhile. You are sure you
don't want this chicken?'

Molly did as she was bid, and leant back, picking languidly at the
grapes, and watching the good appetite with which the lady ate up
the chicken and jelly, and drank the glass of wine. She was so
pretty and so graceful in her deep mourning, that even her hurry in
eating, as if she was afraid of some one coming to surprise her in
the act, did not keep her little observer from admiring her in all
she did.

'And now, darling, are you ready to go?' said she, when she had
eaten up everything on the tray. 'Oh, come; you have nearly finished
your grapes; that's a good girl. Now, if you will come with me to
the side entrance, I will take you up to my own room, and you shall
lie down on the bed for an hour or two; and if you have a good nap
your headache will be quite gone.'

So they set off, Clare carrying the empty tray, rather to Molly's
shame; but the child had enough work to drag herself along, and was
afraid of offering to do anything more. The 'side entrance' was a
flight of steps leading up from a private flower-garden into a
private matted hall, or ante-room, out of which many doors opened,
and in which were deposited the light garden-tools and the bows and
arrows of the young ladies of the house. Lady Cuxhaven must have
seen their approach, for she met them in this hall as soon as they
came in.

'How is she now?' she asked; then glancing at the plates and
glasses, she added, 'Come, I think there can't be much amiss! You're
a good old Clare, but you should have let one of the men fetch that
tray in; life in such weather as this is trouble enough of itself.'

Molly could not help wishing that her pretty companion would have
told Lady Cuxhaven that she herself had helped to finish up the
ample luncheon; but no such idea seemed to come into her mind. She
only said,--'Poor dear! she is not quite the thing yet; has got a
headache, she says. I am going to put her down on my bed, to see if
she can get a little sleep.'

Molly saw Lady Cuxhaven say something in a half-laughing manner to
'Clare,' as she passed her; and the child could not keep from
tormenting herself by fancying that the words spoken sounded
wonderfully like 'Over-eaten herself, I suspect.' However, she felt
too poorly to worry herself long; the little white bed in the cool
and pretty room had too many attractions for her aching head. The
muslin curtains flapped softly from time to time in the scented air
that came through the open windows. Clare covered her up with a
light shawl, and darkened the room. As she was going away Molly
roused herself to say, 'Please, ma'am, don't let them go away
without me. Please ask somebody to waken me if I go to sleep. I am
to go back with the Miss Brownings.'

'Don't trouble yourself about it, dear; I'll take care,' said Clare,
turning round at the door, and kissing her hand to little anxious
Molly. And then she went away, and thought no more about it. The
carriages came round at half-past four, hurried a little by Lady
Cumnor, who had suddenly become tired of the business of
entertaining, and annoyed at the repetition of indiscriminating
admiration.

'Why not have both carriages out, mamma, and get rid of them all at
once?' said Lady Cuxhaven. 'This going by instalments is the most
tiresome thing that could be imagined.' So at last there had been a
great hurry and an unmethodical way of packing off every one at
once. Miss Browning had gone in the chariot (or 'chawyot,' as Lady
Cumnor called it;--it rhymed to her daughter, Lady Hawyot--or
Harriet, as the name was spelt in the ~Peerage~), and Miss Phoebe
had been speeded along with several other guests, away in a great
roomy family conveyance, of the kind which we should now call an
'omnibus.' Each thought that Molly Gibson was with the other, and
the truth was, that she lay fast asleep on Mrs. Kirkpatrick's
bed--Mrs. Kirkpatrick ~nee~ Clare.

The housemaids came in to arrange the room. Their talking aroused
Molly, who sate up on the bed, and tried to push back the hair from
her hot forehead, and to remember where she was. She dropped down on
her feet by the side of the bed, to the astonishment of the women,
and said,--'Please, how soon are we going away?'

'Bless us and save us! who'd ha' thought of any one being in the
bed? Are you one of the Hollingford ladies, my dear? They are all
gone this hour or more!'

'Oh, dear, what shall I do? That lady they call Clare promised to
waken me in time. Papa will so wonder where I am, and I don't know
what Betty will say.'

The child began to cry, and the housemaids looked at each other in
some dismay and much sympathy. Just then, they heard Mrs
Kirkpatrick's step along the passages, approaching. She was singing
some little Italian air in a low musical voice, coming to her
bedroom to dress for dinner. One housemaid said to the other, with a
knowing look, 'Best leave it to her;' and they passed on to their
work in the other rooms.

Mrs. Kirkpatrick opened the door, and stood aghast at the sight of
Molly.

'Why, I quite forgot you!' she said at length. 'Nay, don't cry;
you'll make yourself not fit to be seen. Of course I must take the
consequences of your over-sleeping yourself, and if I can't manage
to get you back to Hollingford to-night, you shall sleep with me,
and we'll do our best to send you home to-morrow morning.'

'But papa!' sobbed out Molly. 'He always wants me to make tea for
him; and I have no night-things.'

'Well, don't go and make a piece of work about what can't be helped
now. I'll lend you night-things, and your papa must do without your
making tea for him to-night. And another time don't over-sleep
yourself in a strange house; you may not always find yourself among
such hospitable people as they are here. Why now, if you don't cry
and make a figure of yourself, I'll ask if you may come in to
dessert with Master Smythe and the little ladies. You shall go into
the nursery, and have some tea with them; and then you must come
back here and brush your hair and make yourself tidy. I think it is
a very fine thing for you to be stopping in such a grand house as
this; many a little girl would like nothing better.'

During this speech she was arranging her ~toilette~ for dinner--
taking off her black morning gown; putting on her dressing-gown;
shaking her long soft auburn hair over her shoulders, and glancing
about the room in search of various articles of her dress,--a
running flow of easy talk came babbling out all the time.

'I have a little girl of my own, dear! I don't know what she would
not give to be staying here at Lord Cumnor's with me; but, instead
of that, she has to spend her holidays at school; and yet you are
looking as miserable as can be at the thought of stopping for just
one night. I really have been as busy as can be with those
tiresome--those good ladies, I mean, from Hollingford--and one can't
think of everything at a time.'

Molly--only child as she was--had stopped her tears at the mention
of that little girl of Mrs. Kirkpatrick's, and now she ventured to
say,--

'Are you married, ma'am; I thought she called you Clare?'

In high good humour Mrs. Kirkpatrick made reply:--'I don't look as if
I was married, do I? Every one is surprised. And yet I have been a
widow for seven months now: and not a grey hair on my head, though
Lady Cuxhaven, who is younger than I, has ever so many.'

'Why do they call you "Clare"?' continued Molly, finding her so
affable and communicative.

'Because I lived with them when I was Miss Clare. It is a pretty
name, isn't it? I married a Mr. Kirkpatrick; he was only a curate,
poor fellow; but he was of a very good family, and if three of his
relations had died without children I should have been a baronet's
wife. But Providence did not see fit to permit it; and we must
always resign ourselves to what is decreed. Two of his cousins
married, and had large families; and poor dear Kirkpatrick died,
leaving me a widow.'

'But you have a little girl?' asked Molly.

'Yes; darling Cynthia! I wish you could see her; she is my only
comfort now. If I have time I will show you her picture when we come
up to bed; but I must go now. It does not do to keep Lady Cumnor
waiting a moment, and she asked me to be down early, to help with
some of the people in the house. Now I shall ring this bell, and
when the housemaid comes, ask her to take you into the nursery, and
to tell Lady Cuxhaven's nurse who you are. And then you'll have tea
with the little ladies, and come in with them to dessert. There! I'm
sorry you've overslept yourself, and are left here; but give me a
kiss, and don't cry--you really are rather a pretty child, though
you've not got Cynthia's colouring! Oh, Nanny, would you be so very
kind as to take this young lady--(what's your name, my dear?
Gibson?),--Miss Gibson, to Mrs. Dyson, in the nursery, and ask her to
allow her to drink tea with the young ladies there; and to send her
in with them to dessert. I'll explain it all to my lady.'

Nanny's face brightened out of its gloom when she heard the name
Gibson; and, having ascertained from Molly that she was 'the
doctor's' child, she showed more willingness to comply with Mrs
Kirkpatrick's request than was usual with her.

Molly was an obliging girl, and fond of children; so, as long as she
was in the nursery, she got on pretty well, being obedient to the
wishes of the supreme power, and even very useful to Mrs. Dyson, by
playing at bricks, and thus keeping a little one quiet while its
brothers and sisters were being arrayed in gay attire,--lace and
muslin, and velvet, and brilliant broad ribbons.

'Now, miss,' said Mrs. Dyson, when her own especial charge were all
ready, 'what can I do for you? You have not got another frock here,
have you?' No, indeed, she had not; nor if she had had one, would it
have been of a smarter nature than her present thick white dimity.
So she could only wash her face and hands, and submit to the nurse's
brushing and perfuming her hair. She thought she would rather have
stayed in the park all night long, and slept under the beautiful
quiet cedar, than have to undergo the unknown ordeal of 'going down
to dessert,' which was evidently regarded both by children and
nurses as the event of the day. At length there was a summons from a
footman, and Mrs. Dyson, in a rustling silk gown, marshalled her
convoy, and set sail for the dining-room door.

There was a large party of gentlemen and ladies sitting round the
decked table, in the brilliantly lighted room. Each dainty little
child ran up to its mother, or aunt, or particular friend; but Molly
had no one to go to.

'Who is that tall girl in the thick white frock? Not one of the
children of the house, I think?'

The lady addressed put up her glass, gazed at Molly, and dropped it
in an instant. 'A French girl, I should imagine. I know Lady
Cuxhaven was inquiring for one to bring up with her little girls,
that they might get a good accent early. Poor little woman, she
looks wild and strange!' And the speaker, who sate next to Lord
Cumnor, made a little sign to Molly to come to her; Molly crept up
to her as to the first shelter; but when the lady began talking to
her in French, she blushed violently, and said, in a very low
voice,--

'I don't understand French. I'm only Molly Gibson, ma'am.'

'Molly Gibson!' said the lady, out loud; as if that was not much of
an explanation.

Lord Cumnor caught the words and the tone.

'Oh, ho!' said he. 'Are you the little girl who has been sleeping in
my bed?'

He imitated the deep voice of the fabulous bear, who asks this
question of the little child in the story; but Molly had never read
the 'Three Bears,' and fancied that his anger was real; she trembled
a little, and drew nearer to the kind lady who had beckoned her as
to a refuge. Lord Cumnor was very fond of getting hold of what he
fancied was a joke, and working his idea threadbare; so all the time
the ladies were in the room he kept on his running fire at Molly,
alluding to the Sleeping Beauty, the Seven Sleepers, and any other
famous sleeper that came into his head. He had no idea of the misery
his jokes were to the sensitive girl, who already thought herself a
miserable sinner, for having slept on, when she ought to have been
awake. If Molly had been in the habit of putting two and two
together, she might have found an excuse for herself, by remembering
that Mrs. Kirkpatrick had promised faithfully to awaken her in time;
but all the girl thought of was, how little they wanted her in this
grand house; how she must seem like a careless intruder who had no
business there. Once or twice she wondered where her father was, and
whether he was missing her; but the thought of the familiar
happiness of home brought such a choking in her throat, that she
felt she must not give way to it, for fear of bursting out crying;
and she had instinct enough to feel that, as she was left at the
Towers, the less trouble she gave, the more she kept herself out of
observation, the better.

She followed the ladies out of the dining-room, almost hoping that
no one would see her. But that was impossible, and she immediately
became the subject of conversation between the awful Lady Cumnor and
her kind neighbour at dinner.

'Do you know, I thought this young lady was French when I first saw
her? she has got the black hair and eyelashes, and grey eyes, and
colourless complexion which one meets with in some parts of France,
and I knew Lady Cuxhaven was trying to find a well-educated girl who
would be a pleasant companion to her children.'

'No!' said Lady Cumnor, looking very stern, as Molly thought. 'She
is the daughter of our medical man at Hollingford; she came with the
school visitors this morning, and she was overcome by the heat and
fell asleep in Clare's room, and somehow managed to oversleep
herself, and did not waken up till all the carriages were gone. We
will send her home to-morrow morning, but for to-night she must stay
here, and Clare is kind enough to say she may sleep with her.'

There was an implied blame running through this speech, that Molly
felt like needle-points all over her. Lady Cuxhaven came up at this
moment. Her tone was as deep, her manner of speaking as abrupt and
authoritative, as her mother's, but Molly felt the kinder nature
underneath.

'How are you now, my dear? You look better than you did under the
cedar-tree. So you're to stop here to-night? Clare, don't you think
we could find some of those books of engravings that would interest
Miss Gibson.'

Mrs. Kirkpatrick came gliding up to the place where Molly stood; and
began petting her with pretty words and actions, while Lady Cuxhaven
turned over heavy volumes in search of one that might interest the
girl.

'Poor darling! I saw you come into the dining-room, looking so shy;
and I wanted you to come near me, but I could not make a sign to
you, because Lord Cuxhaven was speaking to me at the time, telling
me about his travels. Ah, here is a nice book--~Lodge's Portraits~;
now I'll sit by you and tell you who they all are, and all about
them. Don't trouble yourself any more, dear Lady Cuxhaven; I'll take
charge of her; pray leave her to me!'

Molly grew hotter and hotter as these last words met her car. If
they would only leave her alone, and not labour at being kind to
her; would 'not trouble themselves' about her! These words of Mrs
Kirkpatrick's seemed to quench the gratitude she was feeling to Lady
Cuxhaven for looking for something to amuse her. But, of course, it
was a trouble, and she ought never to have been there.

By-and-by, Mrs. Kirkpatrick was called away to accompany Lady Agnes'
song; and then Molly really had a few minutes' enjoyment. She could
look round the room, unobserved, and, sure, never was any place out
of a king's house so grand and magnificent. Large mirrors, velvet
curtains, pictures in their gilded frames, a multitude of dazzling
lights decorated the vast saloon, and the floor was studded with
groups of ladies and gentlemen, all dressed in gorgeous attire.
Suddenly Molly bethought her of the children whom she had
accompanied into the dining-room, and to whose ranks she had
appeared to belong,--where were they? Gone to bed an hour before, at
some quiet signal from their mother. Molly wondered if she might go,
too--if she could ever find her way back to the haven of Mrs
Kirkpatrick's bedroom. But she was at some distance from the door; a
long way from Mrs. Kirkpatrick, to whom she felt herself to belong
more than to any one else. Far, too, from Lady Cuxhaven, and the
terrible Lady Cumnor, and her jocose and good-natured lord. So Molly
sate on, turning over pictures which she did not see; her heart
growing heavier and heavier in the desolation of all this grandeur.
Presently a footman entered the room, and after a moment's looking
about him, he went up to Mrs. Kirkpatrick, where she sate at the
piano, the centre of the musical portion of the company, ready to
accompany any singer, and smiling pleasantly as she willingly
acceded to all requests. She came now towards Molly, in her corner,
and said to her,--

'Do you know, darling, your papa has come for you, and brought your
pony for you to ride home; so I shall lose my little bedfellow, for
I suppose you must go.'

Go! was there a question of it in Molly's mind, as she stood up
quivering, sparkling, almost crying out loud. She was brought to her
senses, though, by Mrs. Kirkpatrick's next words,

'You must go and wish Lady Cumnor good-night, you know, my dear, and
thank her ladyship for her kindness to you, She is there, near that
statue, talking to Mr. Courtenay.'

Yes! she was there--forty feet away--a hundred miles away! All that
blank space had to be crossed; and then a speech to be made!

'Must I go?' asked Molly, in the most pitiful and pleading voice
possible.

'Yes; make haste about it; there is nothing so formidable in it, is
there?' replied Mrs. Kirkpatrick, in a sharper voice than before,
aware that they were wanting her at the piano, and anxious to get
the business in hand done as soon as possible.

Molly stood still for a minute, then, looking up, she said,
softly,--

'Would you mind coming with me, please?'

'No! not I!' said Mrs. Kirkpatrick, seeing that her compliance was
likely to be the most speedy way of getting through the affair; so
she took Molly's hand, and, on the way, in passing the group at the
piano, she said, smiling, in her pretty genteel manner,--

'Our little friend here is shy and modest, and wants me to accompany
her to Lady Cumnor to wish good-night; her father has come for her,
and she is going away.'

Molly did not know how it was afterwards, but she pulled her hand
out of Mrs. Kirkpatrick's on hearing these words, and going a step or
two in advance came up to Lady Cumnor, grand in purple velvet, and
dropping a curtsey, almost after the fashion of the school-children,
she said,--

'My lady, papa is come, and I am going away; and, my lady, I wish
you good-night, and thank you for your kindness. Your ladyship's
kindness, I mean,' she said, correcting herself as she remembered
Miss Browning's particular instructions as to the etiquette to be
observed to earls and countesses, and their honourable progeny, as
they were given this morning on the road to the Towers.

She got out of the saloon somehow; she believed afterwards, on
thinking about it, that she had never bidden good-by to Lady
Cuxhaven, or Mrs. Kirkpatrick, or 'all the rest of them,' as she
irreverently styled them in her thoughts.

Mr. Gibson was in the housekeeper's room, when Molly ran in, rather
to the stately Mrs. Brown's discomfiture. She threw her arms round
her father's neck. 'Oh, papa, papa, papa! I am so glad you have
come;' and then she burst out crying, stroking his face almost
hysterically as if to make sure he was there.

'Why, what a noodle you are, Molly! Did you think I was going to
give up my little girl to live at the Towers all the rest of her
life? You make as much work about my coming for you, as if you
thought I had. Make haste now, and get on your bonnet. Mrs. Brown,
may I ask you for a shawl, or a plaid, or a wrap of some kind to pin
about her for a petticoat?'

He did not mention that he had come home from a long round not half
an hour before, a round from which he had returned dinnerless and
hungry; but, on finding that Molly had not returned from the Towers,
he had ridden his tired horse round by Miss Brownings', and found
them in self-reproachful, helpless dismay. He would not wait to
listen to their tearful apologies; he galloped home, had a fresh
horse and Molly's pony saddled, and though Berry called after him
with a riding-skirt for the child, when he was not ten yards from
his own stable-door, he had refused to turn back for it, but gone
off, as Dick the stableman said, 'muttering to himself awful.'

Mrs. Brown had her bottle of wine out, and her plate of cake, before
Molly came back from her long expedition to Mrs. Kirkpatrick's room,
'pretty nigh on to a quarter of a mile off,' as the housekeeper
informed the impatient father, as he waited for his child to come
down arrayed in her morning's finery with the gloss of newness worn
off. Mr. Gibson was a favourite in all the Towers' household, as
family doctors generally are; bringing hopes of relief at times of
anxiety and distress; and Mrs. Brown, who was subject to gout,
especially delighted in petting him whenever he would allow her. She
even went out into the stable-yard to pin Molly up in the shawl, as
she sate upon the rough-coated pony, and hazarded the somewhat safe
conjecture,--

'I dare say she'll be happier at home, Mr. Gibson,' as they rode
away.

Once out into the park Molly struck her pony, and urged him on as
hard as he would go, Mr. Gibson called out at last,--

'Molly! we're coming to the rabbit-holes; it's not safe to go at
such a pace. Stop.' And as she drew rein he rode up alongside of
her.

'We're getting into the shadow of the trees, and it's not safe
riding fast here.'

'Oh! papa, I never was so glad in all my life. I felt like a lighted
candle when they're putting the extinguisher on it.'

'Did you? How d'ye know what the candle feels?'

'Oh, I don't know, but I did.' And again, after a pause, she
said,--'Oh, I am so glad to be here! It is so pleasant riding here
in the open free, fresh air, crushing out such a good smell from the
dewy grass. Papa! are you there? I can't see you.'

He rode close up alongside of her: he was not sure but what she
might be afraid of riding in the dark shadows, so he laid his hand
upon hers.

'Oh! I am so glad to feel you,' squeezing his hand hard. 'Papa, I
should like to get a chain like Ponto's,' just as long as your
longest round, and then I could fasten us two to each end of it, and
when I wanted you I could pull, and if you did not want to come, you
could pull back again; but I should know you knew I wanted you, and
we could never lose each other.'

'I'm rather lost in that plan of yours; the details, as you state
them, are a little puzzling; but if I make them out rightly, I am to
go about the country, like the donkeys on the common, with a clog
fastened to my hind leg.'

'I don't mind your calling me a clog, if only we were fastened
together.'

'But I do mind your calling me a donkey,' he replied.

'I never did. At least I did not mean to. But it is such a comfort
to know that I may be as rude as I like.'

'Is that what you've learnt from the grand company you've been
keeping to-day? I expected to find you so polite and ceremonious,
that I read a few chapters of ~Sir Charles Grandison~, in order to
bring myself up to concert pitch.'

'Oh, I do hope I shall never be a lord or a lady.'

'Well, to comfort you, I'll tell you this. I am sure you'll never be
a lord; and I think the chances are a thousand to one against your
ever being the other, in the sense in which you mean.'

'I should lose myself every time I had to fetch my bonnet, or else
get tired of long passages and great staircases long before I could
go out walking.'

'But you'd have your lady's-maid, you know.'

'Do you know, papa, I think lady's-maids are worse than ladies. I
should not mind being a housekeeper so much.'

'No! the jam-cupboards and dessert would lie very conveniently to
one's hand,' replied her father, meditatively. 'But Mrs. Brown tells
me that the thought of the dinners often keeps her from sleeping;
there's that anxiety to be taken into consideration. Still, in every
condition of life there are heavy cares and responsibilities.'

'Well! I suppose so,' said Molly, gravely. 'I know Betty says I wear
her life out with the green stains I get in my frocks from sitting
in the cherry-tree.'

'And Miss Browning said she had fretted herself into a headache with
thinking how they had left you behind. I am afraid you'll be as bad
as a bill of fare to them to-night. How did it all happen, goosey?'

'Oh, I went by myself to see the gardens; they are so beautiful! and
I lost myself, and sate down to rest under a great tree; and Lady
Cuxhaven and that Mrs. Kirkpatrick came; and Mrs. Kirkpatrick brought
me some lunch, and then put me to sleep on her bed,--and I thought
she would waken me in time, and she did not; and so they'd all gone
away; and when they planned for me to stop till to-morrow, I didn't
like saying how very, very much I wanted to go home,--but I kept
thinking how you would wonder where I was.'

'Then it was rather a dismal day of pleasure, goosey, eh?'

'Not in the morning. I shall never forget the morning in that
garden. But I was never so unhappy in all my life, as I have been
all this long afternoon.'

Mr. Gibson thought it his duty to ride round by the Towers, and pay a
visit of apology and thanks to the family, before they left for
London. He found them all on the wing, and no one was sufficiently
at liberty to listen to his grateful civilities but Mrs. Kirkpatrick,
who, although she was to accompany Lady Cuxhaven, and pay a visit to
her former pupil, made leisure enough to receive Mr. Gibson, on
behalf of the family; and assured him of her faithful remembrance of
his great professional attention to her in former days in the most
winning manner.

CHAPTER III

MOLLY GIBSON'S CHILDHOOD

Sixteen years before this time, all Hollingford had been disturbed
to its foundations by the intelligence that Mr. Hall, the skilful
doctor, who had attended them all their days, was going to take a
partner. It was no use reasoning to them on the subject; so Mr
Browning the vicar, Mr. Sheepshanks (Lord Cumnor's agent), and Mr
Hall himself, the masculine reasoners of the little society, left
off the attempt, feeling that the ~Che sara sara~ would prove more
silencing to the murmurs than many arguments. Mr. Hall had told his
faithful patients that, even with the strongest spectacles, his
sight was not to be depended upon; and they might have found out for
themselves that his hearing was very defective, although, on this
point, he obstinately adhered to his own opinion, and was frequently
heard to regret the carelessness of people's communication nowadays,
'like writing on blotting-paper, all the words running into each
other,' he would say. And more than once Mr. Hall had had attacks of
a suspicious nature,--'rheumatism' he used to call them; but he
prescribed for himself as if they had been gout,--which had
prevented his immediate attention to imperative summonses. But,
blind and deaf, and rheumatic as he might be, he was still Mr. Hall,
the doctor who could heal all their ailments--unless they died
meanwhile--and he had no right to speak of growing old, and taking a
partner.

He went very steadily to work all the same; advertising in medical
journals, reading testimonials, sifting character and
qualifications; and just when the elderly maiden ladies of
Hollingford thought that they had convinced their contemporary that
he was as young as ever, he startled them by bringing his new
partner, Mr. Gibson, to call upon them, and began 'slyly,' as these
ladies said, to introduce him into practice. And 'who was this Mr
Gibson?' they asked, and echo might answer the question, if she
liked, for no one else did. No one ever in all his life knew
anything more of his antecedents than the Hollingford people might
have found out the first day they saw him: that he was tall, grave,
rather handsome than otherwise; thin enough to be called 'a very
genteel figure,' in those days, before muscular Christianity had
come into vogue; speaking with a slight Scotch accent; and, as one
good lady observed, 'so very trite in his conversation,' by which
she meant sarcastic. As to his birth, parentage, and education,--the
favourite conjecture of Hollingford society was, that he was the
illegitimate son of a Scotch duke, by a Frenchwoman; and the grounds
for this conjecture were these:--He spoke with a Scotch accent;
therefore, he must be Scotch. He had a very genteel appearance, an
elegant figure, and was apt--so his ill-wishers said--to give
himself airs. Therefore, his father must have been some person of
quality; and, that granted, nothing was easier than to run this
supposition up all the notes of the scale of the peerage,--baronet,
baron, viscount, earl, marquis, duke. Higher they dared not go,
though one old lady, acquainted with English history, hazarded the
remark, that 'she believed that one or two of the Stuarts--hem--had
not always been,--ahem--quite correct in their--conduct; and she
fancied such--ahem--things ran in families.' But, in popular
opinion, Mr. Gibson's father always remained a duke; nothing more.

Then his mother must have been a Frenchwoman, because his hair was
so black; and he was so sallow; and because he had been in Paris.
All this might be true, or might not; nobody ever knew, or found out
anything more about him than what Mr. Hall told them, namely, that
his professional qualifications were as high as his moral character,
and that both were far above the average, as Mr. Hall had taken pains
to ascertain before introducing him to his patients. The popularity
of this world is as transient as its glory, as Mr. Hall found out
before the first year of his partnership was over. He had plenty of
leisure left to him now to nurse his gout and cherish his eyesight.
The younger doctor had carried the day; nearly every one sent for Mr
Gibson now; even at the great houses--even at the Towers, that
greatest of all, where Mr. Hall had introduced his new partner with
fear and trembling, with untold anxiety as to his behaviour, and the
impression he might make on my lord the Earl, and MY lady the
Countess. Mr. Gibson was received at the end of a twelvemonth with as
much welcome respect for his professional skill as Mr. Hall himself
had ever been. Nay--and this was a little too much for even the kind
old doctor's good temper--Mr. Gibson had even been invited once to
dinner at the Towers, to dine with the great Sir Astley, the head of
the profession! To be sure, Mr. Hall had been asked as well; but he
was laid up just then with his gout, since he had had a partner the
rheumatism had been allowed to develop itself, and he had not been
able to go. Poor Mr. Hall never quite got over this mortification;
after it he allowed himself to become dim of sight and hard of
hearing, and kept pretty closely to the house during the two winters
that remained of his life. He sent for an orphan grand-niece to keep
him company in his old age; he, the woman-contemning old bachelor,
became thankful for the cheerful presence of the pretty, bonny Mary
Preston, who was good and sensible, and nothing more. She formed a
close friendship with the daughters of the vicar, Mr. Browning, and
Mr. Gibson found time to become very intimate with all three.
Hollingford speculated much on which young lady would become Mrs
Gibson, and was rather sorry when the talk about possibilities, and
the gossip about probabilities with regard to the handsome young
surgeon's marriage, ended in the most natural manner in the world,
by his marrying his predecessor's niece. The two Miss Brownings
showed no signs of going into a consumption on the occasion,
although their looks and manners were carefully watched. On the
contrary, they were rather boisterously merry at the wedding, and
poor Mrs. Gibson it was that died of consumption, four or five years
after her marriage--three years after the death of her great-uncle,
and when her only child, Molly, was just three years old.

Mr. Gibson did not speak much about the grief at the loss of his
wife, which it is to be supposed that he felt. Indeed, he avoided
all demonstration of sympathy, and got up hastily and left the room
when Miss Phoebe Browning first saw him after his loss, and burst
into an uncontrollable flood of tears, which threatened to end in
hysterics. Miss Browning afterwards said she never could forgive him
for his hard-heartedness on that occasion; but a fortnight
afterwards she came to very high words with old Mrs. Goodenough, for
gasping out her doubts whether Mr. Gibson was a man of deep feeling;
judging by the narrowness of his crape hat-band, which ought to have
covered his hat, whereas there was at least three inches of beaver
to be seen. And, in spite of it all, Miss Browning and Miss Phoebe
considered themselves as Mr. Gibson's most intimate friends, in right
of their regard for his dead wife, and would fain have taken a
quasi-motherly interest in his little girl, had she not been guarded
by a watchful dragon in the shape of Betty, her nurse, who was
jealous of any interference between her and her charge; and
especially resentful and disagreeable towards all those ladies who,
by suitable age, rank, or propinquity, she thought capable of
'casting sheep's eyes at master.'

Several years before the opening of this story, Mr. Gibson's position
seemed settled for life, both socially and professionally. He was a
widower, and likely to remain so; his domestic affections were
centred on little Molly, but even to her, in their most private
moments, he did not give way to much expression of his feelings; his
most caressing appellation for her was 'Goosey,' and he took a
pleasure in bewildering her infant mind with his badinage. He had
rather a contempt for demonstrative people, arising from his medical
insight into the consequences to health of uncontrolled feeling. He
deceived himself into believing that still his reason was lord of
all, because he had never fallen into the habit of expression on any
other than purely intellectual subjects. Molly, however, had her own
intuitions to guide her. Though her papa laughed at her, quizzed
her, joked at her, in a way which the Miss Brownings called 'really
cruel' to each other when they were quite alone, Molly took her
little griefs and pleasures, and poured them into her papa's ears,
sooner even than into Betty's, that kind-hearted termagant. The
child grew to understand her father well, and the two had the most
delightful intercourse together--half banter, half seriousness, but
altogether confidential friendship. Mr. Gibson kept three servants;
Betty, a cook, and a girl who was supposed to be housemaid, but who
was under both the elder two, and had a pretty life of it in
consequence. Three servants would not have been required if it had
not been Mr. Gibson's habit, as it had been Mr. Hall's before him, to
take two 'pupils,' as they were called in the genteel language of
Hollingford, 'apprentices,' as they were in fact--being bound by
indentures, and paying a handsome premium' to learn their business.
They lived in the house, and occupied an uncomfortable, ambiguous,
or, as Miss Browning called it with some truth, 'amphibious'
position. They had their meals with Mr. Gibson and Molly, and were
felt to be terribly in the way; Mr. Gibson not being a man who could
make conversation, and hating the duty of talking under restraint.
Yet something within him made him wince, as if his duties were not
rightly performed, when, as the cloth was drawn, the two awkward
lads rose up with joyful alacrity, gave him a nod, which was to be
interpreted as a bow, knocked against each other in their endeavours
to get out of the dining-room quickly; and then might be heard
dashing along a passage which led to the surgery, choking with
half-suppressed laughter. Yet the annoyance he felt at this dull
sense of imperfectly fulfilled duties only made his sarcasms on
their inefficiency, or stupidity, or ill manners, more bitter than
before.

Beyond direct professional instruction, he did not know what to do
with the succession of pairs of young men, whose mission seemed to
be to plague their master consciously, and to plague him
unconsciously. Once or twice Mr. Gibson had declined taking a fresh
pupil, in the hopes of shaking himself free from the incubus, but
his reputation as a clever surgeon had spread so rapidly that fees
which he had thought prohibitory, were willingly paid, in order that
the young man might make a start in life, with the prestige of
having been a pupil of Gibson of Hollingford. But as Molly grew to
be a little girl instead of a child, when she was about eight years
old, her father perceived the awkwardness of her having her
breakfasts and dinners so often alone with the pupils, without his
uncertain presence. To do away with this evil, more than for the
actual instruction she could give, he engaged a respectable woman,
the daughter of a shopkeeper in the town, who had left a destitute
family, to come every morning before breakfast, and to stay with
Molly till he came home at night; or, if he was detained, until the
child's bedtime.

'Now, Miss Eyre,' said he, summing up his instructions the day
before she entered upon her office, 'remember this: you are to make
good tea for the young men, and see that they have their meals
comfortably, and--you are five-and-thirty, I think you said?--try
and make them talk,--rationally, I am afraid is beyond your or
anybody's power; but make them talk without stammering or giggling.
Don't teach Molly too much: she must sew, and read, and write, and
do her sums; but I want to keep her a child, and if I find more
learning desirable for her, I'll see about giving it to her myself.
After all, I am not sure that reading or writing is necessary. Many
a good woman gets married with only a cross instead of her name;
it's rather a diluting of mother-wit, to my fancy; but, however we
must yield to the prejudices of society, Miss Eyre, and so you may
teach the child to read.'

Miss Eyre listened in silence, perplexed but determined to be
obedient to the directions of the doctor, whose kindness she and her
family had good cause to know. She made strong tea; she helped the
young men liberally in Mr. Gibson's absence, as well as in his
presence, and she found the way to unloosen their tongues, whenever
their master was away, by talking to them on trivial subjects in her
pleasant homely way. She taught Molly to read and write, but tried
honestly to keep her back in every other branch of education. It was
only by fighting and struggling hard, that bit by bit Molly
persuaded her father to let her have French and drawing lessons. He
was always afraid of her becoming too much educated, though he need
not have been alarmed; the masters who visited such small country
towns as Hollingford forty years ago, were no such great proficients
in their arts. Once a week she joined a dancing class in the
assembly-room at the principal inn in the town: the 'George;' and,
being daunted by her father in every intellectual attempt, she read
every book that came in her way, almost with as much delight as if
it had been forbidden. For his station in life, Mr. Gibson had an
unusually good library; the medical portion of it was inaccessible
to Molly, being kept in the surgery, but every other book she had
either read, or tried to read. Her summer place of study was that
seat in the cherry-tree, where she got the green stains on her
frock, that have already been mentioned as likely to wear Betty's
life out. In spite of this 'hidden worm i' th' bud,' Betty was to
all appearance strong, alert, and flourishing. She was the one crook
in Miss Eyre's lot, who was otherwise so happy in having met with a
suitable well-paid employment just when she needed it most. But
Betty, though agreeing in theory with her master when he told her of
the necessity of having a governess for his little daughter, was
vehemently opposed to any division of her authority and influence
over the child who had been her charge, her plague, and her delight
ever since Mrs. Gibson's death. She took up her position as censor of
all Miss Eyre's sayings and doings from the very first, and did not
for a moment condescend to conceal her disapprobation. In her heart,
she could not help respecting the patience and painstaking of the
good lady,--for a 'lady' Miss Eyre was in the best sense of the
word, though in Hollingford she only took rank as a shopkeeper's
daughter. Yet Berry buzzed about her with the teasing pertinacity of
a gnat, always ready to find fault, if not to bite. Miss Eyre's only
defence came from the quarter whence it might least have been
expected--from her pupil; on whose fancied behalf, as an oppressed
little personage, Betty always based her attacks. But very early in
the day Molly perceived their injustice, and soon afterwards she
began to respect Miss Eyre for her silent endurance of what
evidently gave her far more pain than Betty imagined. Mr. Gibson had
been a friend in need to her family, so Miss Eyre restrained her
complaints, sooner than annoy him. And she had her reward. Betty
would offer Molly all sorts of small temptations to neglect Miss
Eyre's wishes; Molly steadily resisted, and plodded away at her task
of sewing or her difficult sum. Betty made cumbrous jokes at Miss
Eyre's expense. Molly looked up with the utmost gravity, as if
requesting the explanation of an unintelligible speech; and there is
nothing so quenching to a wag as to be asked to translate his jest
into plain matter-of-fact English, and to show wherein the point
lies. Occasionally Berry lost her temper entirely, and spoke
impertinently to Miss Eyre; but when this had been done in Molly's
presence, the girl flew out into such a violent passion of words in
defence of her silent trembling governess, that even Berry herself
was daunted, though she chose to take the child's anger as a good
joke, and tried to persuade Miss Eyre herself to join in her
amusement.

'Bless the child! one would think I was a hungry pussy-cat, and she
a hen-sparrow, with her wings all fluttering, and her little eyes
aflame, and her beak ready to peck me just because I happened to
look near her nest. Nay, child! if thou lik'st to be stifled in a
nasty close room, learning things as is of no earthly good when they
is learnt, instead o' riding on Job Donkin's hay-cart, it's thy
look-out, not mine. She's a little vixen, isn't she?' smiling at
Miss Eyre, as she finished her speech. But the poor governess saw no
humour in the affair; the comparison of Molly to a hen-sparrow was
lost upon her. She was sensitive and conscientious, and knew, from
home experience, the evils of an ungovernable temper. So she began
to reprove Molly for giving way to her passion, and the child
thought it hard to be blamed for what she considered her just anger
against Betty. But, after all, these were the small grievances of a
very happy childhood.

CHAPTER IV

MR GIBSON'S NEIGHBOURS

Molly grew up among these quiet people in calm monotony of life,
without any greater event than that which has been recorded,--the
being left behind at the Towers, until she was nearly seventeen. She
had become a visitor at the school, but she had never gone again to
the annual festival at the great house; it was easy to find some
excuse for keeping away, and the recollection of that day was not a
pleasant one on the whole, though she often thought how much she
should like to see the gardens again.

Lady Agnes was married; there was only Lady Harriet remaining at
home; Lord Hollingford, the eldest son, had lost his wife, and was a
good deal more at the Towers since he had become a widower. He was a
tall ungainly man, considered to be as proud as his mother, the
countess; but, in fact, he was only shy, and slow at making
commonplace speeches. He did not know what to say to people whose
daily habits and interests were not the same as his; he would have
been very thankful for a handbook of small-talk, and would have
learnt off his sentences with good-humoured diligence. He often
envied the fluency of his garrulous father, who delighted in talking
to everybody, and was perfectly unconscious of the incoherence of
his conversation. But, owing to his constitutional reserve and
shyness, Lord Hollingford was not a popular man, although his
kindness of heart was very great, his simplicity of character
extreme, and his scientific acquirements considerable enough to
entitle him to much reputation in the European republic of learned
men. In this respect Hollingford was proud of him. The inhabitants
knew that the great, grave, clumsy heir to its fealty was highly
esteemed for his wisdom; and that he had made one or two
discoveries, though in what direction they were not quite sure. But
it was safe to point him out to strangers visiting the little town,
as 'That's Lord Hollingford--the famous Lord Hollingford, you know;
you must have heard of him, he is so scientific.' If the strangers
knew his name, they also knew his claims to fame; if they did not,
ten to one but they would make as if they did, and so conceal not
only their own ignorance, but that of their companions, is to the
exact nature of the sources of his reputation.

He was left a widower, with two or three boys. They were at a public
school; so that their companionship could make the house in which he
had passed his married life but little of a home to him, and he
consequently spent much of his time at the Towers; where his mother
was proud of him, and his father very fond, but ever so little
afraid of him. His friends were always welcomed by Lord and Lady
Cumnor; the former, indeed, was in the habit of welcoming everybody
everywhere; but it was a proof of Lady Cumnor's real affection for
her distinguished son, that she allowed him to ask what she called
'all sorts of people' to the Towers. 'All sorts of people' meant
really those who were distinguished for science and learning,
without regard to rank; and, it must be confessed, without much
regard to polished manners likewise.

Mr. Hall, Mr. Gibson's predecessor, had always been received with
friendly condescension by my lady, who had found him established as
the family medical man, when first she came to the Towers on her
marriage; but she never thought of interfering with his custom of
taking his meals, if he needed refreshment, in the housekeeper's
room, not ~with~ the housekeeper, ~bien entendu~. The comfortable,
clever, stout, and red-faced doctor would very much have preferred
this, even if he had had the choice given him (which he never had)
of taking his 'snack,' as he called it, with my lord and my lady, in
the grand dining-room. Of course, if some great surgical gun (like
Sir Astley) was brought down from London to bear on the family's
health, it was due to him, as well as to the local medical
attendant, to ask Mr. Hall to dinner, in a formal and ceremonious
manner, on which occasions Mr. Hall buried his chin in voluminous
folds of white muslin, put on his black knee-breeches, with bunches
of ribbon at the sides, his silk stockings and buckled shoes, and
otherwise made himself excessively uncomfortable in his attire, and
went forth in state in a post-chaise from the 'George,' consoling
himself in the private corner of his heart for the discomfort he was
enduring with the idea of how well it would sound the next day in
the ears of the squires whom he was in the habit of attending.
'Yesterday at dinner the earl said,' or 'the countess remarked,' or
'I was surprised to hear when I was dining at the Towers yesterday.'
But somehow things had changed since Mr. Gibson had become 'the
doctor' ~par excellence~ at Hollingford. The Miss Brownings thought
that it was because he had such an elegant figure, and 'such a
distinguished manner;' Mrs. Goodenough, 'because of his aristocratic
connections'--'the son of a Scotch duke, my dear, never mind on
which side of the blanket'--but the fact was certain; although he
might frequently ask Mrs. Brown to give him something to eat in the
housekeeper's room--he had no time for all the fuss and ceremony of
luncheon with my lady--he was always welcome to the grandest circle
of visitors in the house. He might lunch with a duke any day that he
chose; given that a duke was forthcoming at the Towers. His accent
was Scotch, not provincial. He had not an ounce of superfluous flesh
on his bones; and leanness goes a great way to gentility. His
complexion was sallow, and his hair black; in those days, the decade
after the conclusion of the great continental war, to be sallow and
black-a-vised was of itself a distinction;' he was not jovial (as my
lord remarked with a sigh, but it was my lady who endorsed the
invitations), sparing of his words, intelligent, and slightly
sarcastic. Therefore he was perfectly presentable.

His Scotch blood (for that he was of Scotch descent there could be
no manner of doubt) gave him just the kind of thistly dignity which
made every one feel that they must treat him with respect; so on
that head he was assured. The grandeur of being an invited guest to
dinner at the Towers from time to time, gave him but little pleasure
for many years, but it was a form to be gone through in the way of
his profession, without any idea of social gratification.

But when Lord Hollingford returned to make the Towers his home,
affairs were altered. Mr. Gibson really heard and learnt things that
interested him seriously, and that gave a fresh flavour to his
reading. From time to time he met the leaders of the scientific
world; odd-looking, simple-hearted men, very much in earnest about
their own particular subjects, and not having much to say on any
other. Mr. Gibson found himself capable of appreciating such persons,
and also perceived that they valued his appreciation, as it was
honestly and intelligently given. Indeed, by-and-by, he began to
send contributions of his own to the more scientific of the medical
journals, and thus partly in receiving, partly in giving out
information and accurate thought, a new zest was added to his life.
There was not much intercourse between Lord Hollingford and himself;
the one was too silent and shy, the other too busy, to seek each
other's society with the perseverance required to do away with the
social distinction of rank that prevented their frequent meetings.
But each was thoroughly pleased to come into contact with the other.
Each could rely on the other's respect and sympathy with a security
unknown to many who call themselves friends; and this was a source
of happiness to both; to Mr. Gibson the most so, of course; for his
range of intelligent and cultivated society was the smaller. Indeed,
there was no one equal to himself among the men with whom he
associated, and this he had felt as a depressing influence, although
he had never recognized the cause of his depression. There was Mr
Ashton, the vicar, who had succeeded Mr. Browning, a thoroughly good
and kind-hearted man, but one without an original thought in him;
whose habitual courtesy and indolent mind led him to agree to every
opinion, not palpably heterodox, and to utter platitudes in the most
gentlemanly manner. Mr. Gibson had once or twice amused himself, by
leading the vicar on in his agreeable admissions of arguments 'as
perfectly convincing,' and of statements as 'curious but undoubted,'
till he had planted the poor clergyman in a bog of heretical
bewilderment. But then Mr. Ashton's pain and suffering at suddenly
finding out into what a theological predicament he had been brought,
his real self-reproach at his previous admissions, were so great
that Mr. Gibson lost all sense of fun, and hastened back to the
Thirty-nine Articles with all the good-will in life, as the only
means of soothing the vicar's conscience. On any other subject,
except that of orthodoxy, Mr. Gibson could lead him any lengths; but
then his ignorance on most of them prevented bland acquiescence from
arriving at any results which could startle him. He had some private
fortune, and was not married, and lived the life of an indolent and
refined bachelor; but though he himself was no very active visitor
among his poorer parishioners, he was always willing to relieve
their wants in the most liberal, and, considering his habits,
occasionally in the most self-denying manner, whenever Mr. Gibson, or
any one else, made them clearly known to him. 'Use my purse as
freely as if it was your own, Gibson,' he was wont to say. 'I'm such
a bad one at going about and making talk to poor folk--I dare say I
don't do enough in that way--but I am most willing to give you
anything for any one you may consider in want.'

'Thank you; I come upon you pretty often, I believe, and make very
little scruple about it; but if you'll allow me to suggest, it is,
that you should not try to make talk when you go into the cottages;
but just talk.'

'I don't see the difference,' said the vicar, a little querulously;
'but I dare say there is a difference, and I have no doubt what you
say is quite true. I should not make talk, but talk; and as both are
equally difficult to me, you must let me purchase the privilege of
silence by this ten-pound note.'

'Thank you. It is not so satisfactory to me; and, I should think,
not to yourself. But probably the Joneses and Greens will prefer
it.'

Mr. Ashton would look with plaintive inquiry into Mr. Gibson's face
after some such speech, as if asking if a sarcasm was intended. On
the whole they went on in the most amicable way; only beyond the
gregarious feeling common to most men, they had very little actual
pleasure in each other's society. Perhaps the man of all others to
whom Mr. Gibson took the most kindly--at least, until Lord
Hollingford came into the neighbourhood--was a certain Squire
Hamley. He and his ancestors had been called squire as long back as
local tradition extended. But there was many a greater landowner in
the county, for Squire Hamley's estate was not more than eight
hundred acres or so. But his family had been in possession of it
long before the Earls of Cumnor had been heard of; before the
Hely-Harrisons had bought Coldstone Park; no one in Hollingford knew
the time when the Hamleys had not lived at Hamley. 'Ever since the
Heptarchy,' said the vicar. 'Nay,' said Miss Browning, 'I have heard
that there were Hamleys of Hamley before the Romans.' The vicar was
preparing a polite assent, when Mrs. Goodenough came in with a still
more startling assertion. 'I have always heerd,' said she, with all
the slow authority of an oldest inhabitant, 'that there was Hamleys
of Hamley afore the time of the pagans.' Mr. Ashton could only bow,
and say, 'Possibly, very possibly, madam.' But he said it in so
courteous a manner that Mrs. Goodenough looked round in a gratified
manner, as much as to say, 'The Church confirms my words; who now
will dare dispute them?' At any rate, the Hamleys were a very old
family, if not aborigines. They had not increased their estate for
centuries; they had held their own, if even with an effort, and had
not sold a rood of it for the last hundred years or so. But they
were not an adventurous race. They never traded, or speculated, or
tried agricultural improvements of any kind. They had no capital in
any bank; nor what perhaps would have been more in character, hoards
of gold in any stocking. Their mode of life was simple, and more
like that of yeomen than squires. Indeed Squire Hamley, by
continuing the primitive manners and customs of his forefathers, the
squires of the eighteenth century, did live more as a yeoman, when
such a class existed, than as a squire of this generation. There was
a dignity in this quiet conservatism that gained him an immense
amount of respect both from high and low; and he might have visited
at every house in the county had he so chosen. But he was very
indifferent to the charms of society; and perhaps this was owing to
the fact that the squire, Roger Hamley, who at present lived and
reigned at Hamley, had not received so good an education as he ought
to have done. His father, Squire Stephen, had been plucked at
Oxford, and, with stubborn pride, he had refused to go up again.
Nay, more! he had sworn a great oath, as men did in those days, that
none of his children to come should ever know either university by
becoming a member of it. He had only one child, the present squire,
and he was brought up according to his father's word; he was sent to
a petty provincial school, where he saw much that he hated, and then
turned loose upon the estate as its heir. Such a bringing up did not
do him all the harm that might have been anticipated. He was
imperfectly educated, and ignorant on many points; but he was aware
of his deficiency, and regretted it in theory. He was awkward and
ungainly in society, and so kept out of it as much as possible; and
he was obstinate, violent-tempered, and dictatorial in his own
immediate circle. On the other side, he was generous, and true as
steel; the very soul of honour in fact. He had so much natural
shrewdness, that his conversation was always worth listening to,
although he was apt to start by assuming entirely false premisses,
which he considered as incontrovertible as if they had been
mathematically proved; but, given the correctness of his premisses,
nobody could bring more natural wit and sense to bear upon the
arguments based upon them.

He had married a delicate fine London lady; it was one of those
perplexing marriages of which one cannot understand the reasons. Yet
they were very happy, though possibly Mrs. Hamley would not have sunk
into the condition of a chronic invalid, if her husband had cared a
little more for her various tastes, or allowed her the companionship
of those who did. After his marriage he was wont to say he had got
all that was worth having out of that crowd of houses they called
London. It was a compliment to his wife which he repeated until the
year of her death; it charmed her at first, it pleased her up to the
last time of her hearing it; but, for all that, she used sometimes
to wish that he would recognize the fact that there might still be
something worth hearing and seeing in the great city. But he never
went there again, and though he did not prohibit her going, yet he
showed so little sympathy with her when she came back full of what
she had done on her visit that she ceased caring to go. Not but what
he was kind and willing in giving his consent, and in furnishing her
amply with money. 'There, there, my little woman, take that! Dress
yourself up as fine as any on 'em, and buy what you like, for the
credit of Hamley of Hamley; and go to the park and the play, and
show off with the best on 'em. I shall be glad to see thee back
again, I know; but have thy fling while thou art about it.' Then
when she came back it was, 'Well, well, it has pleased thee, I
suppose, so that's all right. But the very talking about it tires
me, I know, and I can't think how you have stood it all. Come out
and see how pretty the flowers are looking in the south garden. I've
made them sow all the seeds you like; and I went over to Hollingford
nursery to buy the cuttings of the plants you admired last year. A
breath of fresh air will clear my brain after listening to all this
talk about the whirl of London, which is like to have turned me
giddy.'

Mrs. Hamley was a great reader, and had considerable literary taste.
She was gentle and sentimental; tender and good. She gave up her
visits to London; she gave up her sociable pleasure in the company
of her fellows in education and position. Her husband, owing to the
deficiencies of his early years, disliked associating with those to
whom he ought to have been an equal; he was too proud to mingle with
his inferiors. He loved his wife all the more dearly for her
sacrifices for him; but, deprived of all her strong interests, she
sank into ill-health; nothing definite; only she never was well.
Perhaps if she had had a daughter it would have been better for her;
but her two children were boys, and their father, anxious to give
them the advantages of which he himself had suffered the
deprivation, sent the lads very early to a preparatory school. They
were to go on to Rugby and Cambridge; the idea of Oxford was
hereditarily distasteful in the Hamley family. Osborne, the
eldest--so called after his mother's maiden name--was full of
tastes, and had some talent. His appearance had all the grace and
refinement of his mother's. He was sweet-tempered and affectionate,
almost as demonstrative as a girl. He did well at school, carrying
away many prizes; and was, in a word, the pride and delight of both
father and mother; the confidential friend of the latter, in default
of any other. Roger was two years younger than Osborne; clumsy and
heavily built, like his father; his face was square, and the
expression grave, and rather immobile. He was good, but dull, his
schoolmasters said. He won no prizes, but brought home a favourable
report of his conduct. When he caressed his mother, she used
laughingly to allude to the fable of the lap-dog and the donkey; so
thereafter he left off all personal demonstration of affection. It
was a great question as to whether he was to follow his brother to
college after he left Rugby. Mrs. Hamley thought it would be rather a
throwing away of money, as he was so little likely to distinguish
himself in intellectual pursuits; anything practical--such as a
civil engineer--would be more the line of life for him. She thought
that it would be too mortifying for him to go to the same college
and university as his brother, who was sure to distinguish
himself--and, to be repeatedly plucked, to come away wooden-spoon at
last. But his father persevered doggedly, as was his wont, in his
intention of giving both his sons the same education; they should
both have the advantages of which he had been deprived. If Roger did
not do well at Cambridge it would be his own fault. If his father
did not send him thither, some day or other he might be regretting
the omission, as Squire Roger had done himself for many a year. So
Roger followed his brother Osborne to Trinity,' and Mrs. Hamley was
again left alone, after the year of indecision as to Roger's
destination, which had been brought on by her urgency. She had not
been able for many years to walk beyond her garden; the greater part
of her life was spent on a sofa, wheeled to the window in summer, to
the fireside in winter. The room which she inhabited was large and
pleasant; four tall windows looked out upon a lawn dotted over with
flower-beds, and melting away into a small wood, in the centre of
which there was a pond, filled with water-lilies. About this unseen
pond in the deep shade Mrs. Hamley had written many a pretty
four-versed poem since she lay on her sofa, alternately reading and
composing poetry. She had a small table by her side on which there
were the newest works of poetry and fiction; a pencil and
blotting-book, with loose sheets of blank paper; a vase of flowers
always of her husband's gathering; winter and summer, she had a
sweet fresh nosegay every day. Her maid brought her a draught of
medicine every three hours, with a glass of clear water and a
biscuit; her husband came to her as often as his love for the open
air and his labours out-of-doors permitted; but the event of her
day, when her boys were absent, was Mr. Gibson's frequent
professional visits.

He knew there was real secret harm going on all this time that
people spoke of her as a merely fanciful invalid; and that one or
two accused him of humouring her fancies. But he only smiled at such
accusations. He felt that his visits were a real pleasure and
lightening of her growing and indescribable discomfort; he knew that
Squire Hamley would have been only too glad if he had come every
day; and he was conscious that by careful watching of her symptoms
he might mitigate her bodily pain. Besides all these reasons, he
took great pleasure in the squire's society. Mr. Gibson enjoyed the
other's unreasonableness; his quaintness; his strong conservatism in
religion, politics, and morals. Mrs. Hamley tried sometimes to
apologize for, or to soften away, opinions which she fancied were
offensive to the doctor, or contradictions which she thought too
abrupt; but at such times her husband would lay his great hand
almost caressingly on Mr. Gibson's shoulder, and soothe his wife's
anxiety, by saying, 'Let us alone, little woman. We understand each
other, don't we, doctor? Why, bless your life, he gives me better
than he gets many a time; only, you see, he sugars it over, and says
a sharp thing, and pretends it's all civility and humility; but I
can tell when he's giving me a pill.'

One of Mrs. Hamley's often-expressed wishes had been, that Molly
might come and pay her a visit. Mr. Gibson always refused this
request of hers, though he could hardly have given his reasons for
these refusals. He did not want to lose the companionship of his
child, in fact; but he put it to himself in quite a different way.
He thought her lessons and her regular course of employment would be
interrupted. The life in Mrs. Hamley's heated and scented room would
not be good for the girl; Osborne and Roger Hamley would be at home,
and he did not wish Molly to be thrown too exclusively upon them for
young society; or they would not be at home, and it would be rather
dull and depressing for his girl to be all the day long with a
nervous invalid.

But at length the day came when Mr. Gibson rode over, and volunteered
a visit from Molly; an offer which Mrs. Hamley received with the
'open arms of her heart,' as she expressed it; and of which the
duration was unspecified. And the cause for this change in Mr
Gibson's wishes was as follows:--It has been mentioned that he took
pupils, rather against his inclination, it is true; but there they
were, a Mr. Wynne and Mr. Coxe, 'the young gentlemen,' as they were
called in the household; 'Mr. Gibson's young gentlemen,' as they were
termed in the town. Mr. Wynne was the elder, the more experienced
one, who could occasionally take his master's place, and who gained
experience by visiting the poor, and the 'chronic cases.' Mr. Gibson
used to talk over his practice with Mr. Wynne, and try and elicit his
opinions in the vain hope that, some day or another, Mr. Wynne might
start an original thought. The young man was cautious and slow; he
would never do any harm by his rashness, but at the same time he
would always be a little behind his day. Still Mr. Gibson remembered
that he had had far worse 'young gentlemen' to deal with; and was
content with, if not thankful for, such an elder pupil as Mr. Wynne.
Mr. Coxe was a boy of nineteen or so, with brilliant red hair, and a
tolerably red face, of both of which he was very conscious and much
ashamed. He was the son of an Indian officer, an old acquaintance of
Mr. Gibson's. Major Coxe was at some unpronounceable station in the
Punjaub, at the present time; but the year before he had been in
England, and had repeatedly expressed his great satisfaction at
having placed his only child as a pupil to his old friend, and had
in fact almost charged Mr. Gibson with the guardianship as well as
the instruction of his boy, giving him many injunctions which he
thought were special in this case; but which Mr. Gibson with a touch
of annoyance assured the major were always attended to in every
case, with every pupil. But when the poor major ventured to beg that
his boy might be considered as one of the family, and that he might
spend his evenings in the drawing-room instead of the surgery, Mr
Gibson turned upon him with a direct refusal.

'He must live like the others. I can't have the pestle and mortar
carried into the drawing-room, and the place smelling of aloes.'

'Must my boy make pills himself, then?' asked the major, ruefully.

'To be sure. The youngest apprentice always does. It's not hard
work. He'll have the comfort of thinking he won't have to swallow
them himself. And he'll have the run of the pomfret cakes, and the
conserve of hips, and on Sundays he shall have a taste of tamarinds
to reward him for his weekly labour at pill-making.'

Major Coxe was not quite sure whether Mr. Gibson was not laughing at
him in his sleeve; but things were so far arranged, and the real
advantages were so great that he thought it was best to take no
notice, but even to submit to the indignity of pill-making. He was
consoled for all these rubs by Mr. Gibson's manner at last when the
supreme moment of final parting arrived. The doctor did not say
much; but there was something of real sympathy in his manner that
spoke straight to the father's heart, and an implied 'you have
trusted me with your boy, and I have accepted the trust in full,' in
each of the last few words.

Mr. Gibson knew his business and human nature too well to distinguish
young Coxe by any overt marks of favouritism; but he could not help
showing the lad occasionally that he regarded him with especial
interest as the son of a friend. Besides this claim upon his regard,
there was something about the young man himself that pleased Mr
Gibson. He was rash and impulsive, apt to speak, hitting the nail on
the head sometimes with unconscious cleverness, at other times
making gross and startling blunders. Mr. Gibson used to tell him that
his motto would always be 'kill or cure,' and to this Mr. Coxe once
made answer that he thought it was the best motto a doctor could
have; for if he could not cure the patient, it was surely best to
get him out of his misery quietly, and at once. Mr. Wynne looked up
in surprise, and observed that he should be afraid that such putting
out of misery might be looked upon as homicide by some people. Mr
Gibson said in a dry tone, that for his part he should not mind the
imputation of homicide, but that it would not do to make away with
profitable patients in so speedy a manner; and that he thought that
as long as they were willing and able to pay two-and-sixpence for
the doctor's visit, it was his duty to keep them alive; of course,
when they became paupers the case was different. Mr. Wynne pondered
over this speech; Mr. Coxe only laughed. At last Mr. Wynne said,--

'But you go every morning, sir, before breakfast to see old Nancy
Grant, and you've ordered her this medicine, sir, which is about the
most costly in Corbyn's bill?'

'Have you not found out how difficult it is for men to live up to
their precepts? You've a great deal to learn yet, Mr. Wynne!' said Mr
Gibson, leaving the surgery as he spoke.

'I never can make the governor out,' said Mr. Wynne, in a tone of
utter despair. 'What are you laughing at, Coxey?'

'Oh! I'm thinking how blest you are in having parents who have
instilled moral principles into your youthful bosom. You'd go and be
poisoning all the paupers off, if you hadn't been told that murder
was a crime by your mother; you'd be thinking you were doing as you
were bid, and quote old Gibson's words when you came to be tried.
"Please, my lord judge, they were not able to pay for my visits, and
so I followed the rules of the profession as taught me by Mr. Gibson,
the great surgeon at Hollingford, and poisoned the paupers." '

'I can't bear that scoffing way of his.'

'And I like it. If it wasn't for the governor's fun, and the
tamarinds, and something else that I know of, I would run off to
India. I hate stifling rooms, and sick people, and the smell of
drugs, and the stink of pills on my hands;--faugh!'

CHAPTER V

CALF-LOVE

One day, for some reason or other, Mr. Gibson came home unexpectedly.
He was crossing the hall, having come in by the garden-door--the
garden communicated with the stable-yard, where he had left his
horse--when the kitchen door opened, and the girl who was underling
in the establishment, came quickly into the hall with a note in her
hand, and made as if she was taking it upstairs; but on seeing her
master she gave a little start, and turned back as if to hide
herself in the kitchen. If she had not made this movement, so
conscious of guilt, Mr. Gibson, who was anything but suspicious,
would never have taken any notice of her. As it was, he stepped
quickly forwards, opened the kitchen door, and called out, 'Bethia'
so sharply that she could not delay coming forwards.

'Give me that note,' he said. She hesitated a little.

'It's for Miss Molly,' she stammered out.

'Give it to me!' he repeated more quietly than before. She looked as
if she would cry; but still she kept the note tight held behind her
back.

'He said as I was to give it into her own hands; and I promised as I
would, faithful.'

'Cook, go and find Miss Molly. Tell her to come here at once.'

He fixed Bethia with his eyes. It was of no use trying to escape:
she might have thrown it into the fire, but she had not presence of
mind enough. She stood immovable, only her eyes looked any way
rather than encounter her master's steady gaze. 'Molly, my dear!'

'Papa! I did not know you were at home,' said innocent, wondering
Molly.

'Bethia, keep your word. Here is Miss Molly; give her the note.'

'Indeed, Miss, I couldn't help it!'

Molly took the note, but before she could open it, her father
said,--'That's all, my dear; you need not read it. Give it to me.
Tell those who sent you, Bethia, that all letters for Miss Molly
must pass through my hands. Now be off with you, goosey, and go back
to where you came from.'

'Papa, I shall make you tell me who my correspondent is.'

'We'll see about that, by-and-by.'

She went a little reluctantly, with ungratified curiosity, upstairs
to Miss Eyre, who was still her daily companion, if not her
governess. He turned into the empty dining-room, shut the door,
broke the seal of the note, and began to read it. It was a flaming
love-letter from Mr. Coxe; who professed himself unable to go on
seeing her day after day without speaking to her of the passion she
had inspired--an 'eternal passion,' he called it; on reading which
Mr. Gibson laughed a little. Would she not look kindly at him? would
she not think of him whose only thought was of her? and so on, with
a very proper admixture of violent compliments to her beauty. She
was fair, not pale; her eyes were loadstars, her dimples marks of
Cupid's finger, &c.

Mr. Gibson finished reading it; and began to think about it in his
own mind. 'Who would have thought the lad had been so poetical; but,
to be sure, there's a "Shakespeare" in the surgery library: I'll
take it away and put "Johnson's Dictionary" instead. One comfort is
the conviction of her perfect innocence--ignorance, I should rather
say--for it is easy to see it's the first "confession of his love,"
as he calls it. But it's an awful worry--to begin with lovers so
early. Why, she's only just seventeen,--not seventeen, indeed, till
July; not for six weeks yet. Sixteen and three-quarters! Why, she's
quite a baby. To be sure--poor Jeanie was not so old, and how I did
love her! (Mrs. Gibson's name was Mary, so he must have been
referring to someone else.) Then his thoughts wandered back to other
days, though he still held the open note in his hand. By-and-by his
eyes fell upon it again, and his mind came back to bear upon the
present time. 'I'll not be hard upon him. I'll give him a hint; he
is quite sharp enough to take it. Poor laddie! if I send him away,
which would be the wisest course, I do believe, he's got no home to
go to.'

After a little more consideration in the same strain, Mr. Gibson went
and sat down at the writing-table and wrote the following formula:--

~Master Coxe~

('That "master" will touch him to the quick,' said Mr. Gibson to
himself as he wrote the word.)

* Verecundiae *
Fidelitatis Domesticae *
Reticentiae gr.
iij.
M. Capiat hanc dosim ter die in aqua pura.

R. GIBSON, ~Ch.~

Mr. Gibson smiled a little sadly as he re-read his words. 'Poor
Jeanie,' he said aloud. And then he chose out an envelope, enclosed
the fervid love-letter, and the above prescription; sealed it with
his own sharply-cut seal-ring, R. G., in Old-English letters, and
then paused over the address.

'He'll not like ~Master~ Coxe outside; no need to put him to
unnecessary shame.' So the direction on the envelope was--

~Edward Coxe, Esq.~

Then Mr. Gibson applied himself to the professional business which
had brought him home so opportunely and unexpectedly, and afterwards
he went back through the garden to the stables; and just as he had
mounted his horse, he said to the stable-man,--'Oh! by the way,
here's a letter for Mr. Coxe. Don't send it through the women; take
it round yourself to the surgery-door, and do it at once.'

The slight smile upon his face, as he rode out of the gates, died
away as soon as he found himself in the solitude of the lanes. He
slackened his speed, and began to think. It was very awkward, he
considered, to have a motherless girl growing up into womanhood in
the same house with two young men, even if she only met them at
meal-times; and all the intercourse they had with each other was
merely the utterance of such words as, 'May I help you to potatoes?'
or, as Mr. Wynne would persevere in saying, 'May I assist you to
potatoes?'--a form of speech which grated daily more and more upon
Mr. Gibson's cars. Yet Mr. Coxe, the offender in this affair which had
just occurred, had to remain for three years more as a pupil in Mr
Gibson's family. He should be the very last of the race. Still there
were three years to be got over; and if this stupid passionate
calf-love of his lasted, what was to be done? Sooner or later Molly
would become aware of it. The contingencies of the affair were so
excessively disagreeable to contemplate, that Mr. Gibson determined
to dismiss the subject from his mind by a good strong effort. He put
his horse to a gallop, and found that the violent shaking over the
lanes--paved as they were with round stones, which had been
dislocated by the wear and tear of a hundred years--was the very
best thing for the spirits, if not for the bones. He made a long
round that afternoon, and came back to his home imagining that the
worst was over, and that Mr. Coxe would have taken the hint conveyed
in the prescription. All that would be needed was to find a safe
place for the unfortunate Bethia, who had displayed such a daring
aptitude for intrigue. But Mr. Gibson reckoned without his host. It
was the habit of the young men to come in to tea with the family in
the dining-room, to swallow two cups, munch their bread or toast,
and then disappear. This night Mr. Gibson watched their countenances
furtively from under his long eye-lashes, while he tried against his
wont to keep up a ~degage~ manner, and a brisk conversation on
general subjects. He saw that Mr. Wynne was on the point of breaking
out into laughter, and that red-haired, red-faced Mr. Coxe was redder
and fiercer than ever, while his whole aspect and ways betrayed
indignation and anger.

'He will have it, will he?' thought Mr. Gibson to himself; and he
girded up his loins for the battle. He did not follow Molly and Miss
Eyre into the drawing-room as he usually did. He remained where he
was, pretending to read the newspaper, while Bethia, her face
swelled up with crying, and with an aggrieved and offended aspect,
removed the tea-things. Not five minutes after the room was cleared,
came the expected tap at the door. 'May I speak to you, sir?' said
the invisible Mr. Coxe, from outside.

'To be sure. Come in, Mr. Coxe. I was rather wanting to talk to you
about that bill of Corbyn's. Pray sit down.'

'It is about nothing of that kind, sir, that I wanted--that I
wished--No, thank you--I would rather not sit down.' He,
accordingly, stood in offended dignity. 'It is about that letter,
sir--that letter with the insulting prescription, sir.'

'Insulting prescription! I am surprised at such a word being applied
to any prescription of mine--though, to be sure, patients are
sometimes offended at being told the nature of their illnesses; and,
I dare say, they may take offence at the medicines which their cases
require.'

'I did not ask you to prescribe for me.'

'Oh, ho! Then you were the Master Coxe who sent the note through
Bethia! Let me tell you it has cost her her place, and was a very
silly letter into the bargain.'

'It was not the conduct of a gentleman, sir, to intercept it, and to
open it, and to read words never addressed to you, sir.'

'No!' said Mr. Gibson, with a slight twinkle in his eye and a curl on
his lips, not unnoticed by the indignant Mr. Coxe. 'I believe I was
once considered tolerably good-looking, and I dare say I was as
great a coxcomb as any one at twenty; but I don't think that even
then I should quite have believed that all those pretty compliments
were addressed to myself.'

'It was not the conductor a gentleman, sir,' repeated Mr. Coxe,
stammering over his words--he was going on to say something more,
when Mr. Gibson broke in.

'And let me tell you, young man,' replied Mr. Gibson, with a sudden
sternness in his voice, 'that what you have done is only excusable
in consideration of your youth and extreme ignorance of what are
considered the laws of domestic honour. I receive you into my house
as a member of my family--you induce one of my servants--corrupting
her with a bribe, I have no doubt--'

'Indeed, sir! I never gave her a penny.'

'Then you ought to have done. You should always pay those who do
your dirty work.'

'Just now, sir, you called it corrupting with a bribe,' muttered Mr
Coxe.

Mr. Gibson took no notice of this speech, but went on,--'Inducing one
of my servants to risk her place, without offering her the slightest
equivalent, by begging her to convey a letter clandestinely to my
daughter--a mere child.'

'Miss Gibson, sir, is nearly seventeen! I heard you say so only the
other day,' said Mr. Coxe, aged twenty. Again Mr. Gibson ignored the
remark.

'A letter which you were unwilling to have seen by her father, who
had tacitly trusted to your honour, by receiving you as an inmate of
his house. Your father's son--I know Major Coxe well--ought to have
come to me, and have said out openly, "Mr. Gibson, I love--or I fancy
that I love--your daughter; I do not think it right to conceal this
from you, although unable to earn a penny; and with no prospect of
an unassisted livelihood, even for myself, for several years, I
shall not say a word about my feelings--or fancied feelings--to the
very young lady herself." That is what your father's son ought to
have said; if, indeed, a couple of grains of reticent silence would
not have been better still.'

'And if I had said it, sir--perhaps I ought to have said it,' said
poor Mr. Coxe, in a hurry of anxiety, 'what would have been your
answer? Would you have sanctioned my passion, sir?'

'I would have said, most probably--I will not be certain of my exact
words in a suppositious case--that you were a young fool, but not a
dishonourable young fool, and I should have told you not to let your
thoughts run upon a calf-love until you had magnified it into a
passion. And I dare say, to make up for the mortification I should
have given you, I should have prescribed your joining the
Hollingford Cricket Club, and set you at liberty as often as I could
on the Saturday afternoons. As it is, I must write to your father's
agent in London, and ask him to remove you out of my household,
repaying the premium, of course, which will enable you to start
afresh in some other doctor's surgery.'

'It will so grieve my father,' said Mr. Coxe, startled into dismay,
if not repentance.

'I see no other course open. It will give Major Coxe some trouble (I
shall take care that he is at no extra expense), but what I think
will grieve him the most is the betrayal of confidence; for I
trusted you, Edward, like a son of my own!' There was something in
Mr. Gibson's voice when he spoke seriously, especially when he
referred to any feeling of his own--he who so rarely betrayed what
was passing in his heart--that was irresistible to most people: the
change from joking and sarcasm to tender gravity.

Mr. Coxe hung his head a little, and meditated.

'I do love Miss Gibson,' said he at length. 'Who could help it?'

'Mr. Wynne, I hope!' said Mr. Gibson.

'His heart is pre-engaged,' replied Mr. Coxe. 'Mine was free as air
till I saw her.'

'Would it tend to cure your--well! passion, we'll say--if she wore
blue spectacles at meal-times? I observe you dwell much on the
beauty of her eyes.'

'You are ridiculing my feelings, Mr. Gibson. Do you forget that you
yourself were young once?'

'Poor Jeanie' rose before Mr. Gibson's eyes; and he felt a little
rebuked.

'Come, Mr. Coxe, let us see if we can't make a bargain,' said he,
after a minute or so of silence. 'You have done a really wrong
thing, and I hope you are convinced of it in your heart, or that you
will be when the heat of this discussion is over, and you come to
think a little about it. But I won't lose all respect for your
father's son. If you will give me your word that, as long as you
remain a member of my family--pupil, apprentice, what you will--you
won't again try to disclose your passion--you see, I am careful to
take your view of what I should call a mere fancy--by word or
writing, looks or acts, in any manner whatever, to my daughter, or
to talk about your feelings to any one else, you shall remain here.
If you cannot give me your word, I must follow out the course I
named, and write to your father's agent.'

Mr. Coxe stood irresolute.

'Mr. Wynne knows all I feel for Miss Gibson, sir. He and I have no
secrets from each other.'

'Well, I suppose he must represent the reeds. You know the story of
King Midas's barber, who found out that his royal master had the
ears of an ass beneath his hyacinthine curls. So the barber, in
default of a Mr. Wynne, went to the reeds that grew on the shores of
a neighbouring lake, and whispered to them, "King Midas has the ears
of an ass." But he repeated it so often that the reeds learnt the
words, and kept on saying them all the day long, till at the last
the secret was no secret at all. If you keep on telling your tale to
Mr. Wynne, are you sure he won't repeat it in his turn?'

'If I pledge my word as a gentleman, sir, I pledge it for Mr. Wynne
as well.'

'I suppose I must run the risk. But remember how soon a young girl's
name may be breathed upon, and sullied. Molly has no mother, and for
that very reason she ought to move among you all, as unharmed as Una
herself.'

'Mr. Gibson, if you wish it, I'll swear it on the Bible,' cried the
excitable young man.

'Nonsense. As if your word, if it's worth anything, was not enough!
We'll shake hands upon it, if you like.'

Mr. Coxe came forward eagerly, and almost squeezed Mr. Gibson's ring
into his finger.

As he was leaving the room, he said, a little uneasily, 'May I give
Bethia a crown-piece?'

'No, indeed! Leave Bethia to me. I hope you won't say another word
to her while she is here. I shall see that she gets a respectable
place when she goes away.'

Then Mr. Gibson rang for his horse, and went out on the last visits
of the day. He used to reckon that he rode the world around in the
course of the year. There were not many surgeons in the county who
had so wide a range of practice as he; he went to lonely cottages on
the borders of great commons; to farm-houses at the end of narrow
country lanes that led to nowhere else, and were overshadowed by the
elms and beeches overhead. He attended all the gentry within a
circle of fifteen miles round Hollingford; and was the appointed
doctor to the still greater families who went up to London very
February--as the fashion then was--and returned to their acres in
the early weeks of July. He was, of necessity, a great deal from
home, and on this soft and pleasant summer evening he felt the
absence as a great evil. He was startled into discovering that his
little one was growing fast into a woman, and already the passive
object of some of the strong interests that affect a woman's life;
and he--her mother as well as her father--so much away that he could
not guard her as he would have wished. The end of his cogitations
was that ride to Hamley the next morning, when he proposed to allow
his daughter to accept Mrs. Hamley's last invitation--an invitation
that had been declined at the time.

'You may quote against me the proverb, "He that will not when he
may, when he will he shall have nay." And I shall have no reason to
complain,' he had said.

But Mrs. Hamley was only too much charmed with the prospect of having
a young girl for a visitor; one whom it would not be a trouble to
entertain; who might be sent out to ramble in the gardens, or told
to read when the invalid was too much fatigued for conversation; and
yet one whose youth and freshness would bring a charm, like a waft
of sweet summer air, into her lonely shut-up life. Nothing could be
pleasanter, and so Molly's visit to Hamley was easily settled.

'I only wish Osborne and Roger had been at home,' said Mrs. Hamley,
in her slow soft voice. 'She may find it dull being with old people,
like the squire and me, from morning till night. When can she come?
the darling--I am beginning to love her already!'

Mr. Gibson was very glad in his heart that the young men of the house
were out of the way; he did not want his little Molly to be passing
from Scylla to Charybdis; and, as he afterwards scoffed at himself
for thinking, he had got an idea that all young men were wolves in
chase of his one ewe-lamb.

'She knows nothing of the pleasure in store for her,' he replied;
'and I am sure I don't know what feminine preparations she may think
necessary, or how long they may take. You'll remember she is a
little ignoramus, and has had no . . . no training in etiquette; our
ways at home are rather rough for a girl, I'm afraid. But I know I
could not send her into a kinder atmosphere than this.'

When the squire heard from his wife of Mr. Gibson's proposal, he was
as much pleased as she at the prospect of their youthful visitor;
for he was a man of a hearty hospitality, when his pride did not
interfere with its gratification; and he was delighted to think of
his sick wife's having such an agreeable companion in her hours of
loneliness. After a while he said,--'It's as well the lads are at
Cambridge; we might have been having a love-affair if they had been
at home.'

'Well--and if we had?' asked his more romantic wife.

'It would not have done,' said the squire, decidedly. 'Osborne will
have had a first-rate education--as good as any man in the
county--he'll have this property, and he's a Hamley of Hamley; not a
family in the shire is as old as we are, or settled on their ground
so well. Osborne may marry where he likes. If Lord Hollingford had a
daughter, Osborne would have been as good a match as she could have
required. It would never do for him to fall in love with Gibson's
daughter--I should not allow it. So it's as well he's out of the
way.'

'Well! perhaps Osborne had better look higher.'

'"Perhaps!" I say he must.' The squire brought his hand down with a
thump on the table, near him, which made his wife's heart beat hard
for some minutes. 'And as for Roger,' he continued, unconscious of
the flutter he had put her into, 'he'll have to make his own way,
and earn his own bread; and, I'm afraid, he's not getting on very
brilliantly at Cambridge. He must not think of falling in love for
these ten years.'

'Unless he marries a fortune,' said Mrs. Hamley, more by way of
concealing her palpitation than anything else; for she was unworldly
and romantic to a fault.

'No son of mine shall ever marry a wife who is richer than himself,
with my good will,' said the squire again, with emphasis, but
without a thump. 'I don't say but what if Roger is gaining five
hundred a year by the time he's thirty, he shall not choose a wife
with ten thousand pounds down; but I do say, if a boy of mine, with
only two hundred a year--which is all Roger will have from us, and
that not for a long time--goes and marries a woman with fifty
thousand to her portion, I will disown him--it would be just
disgusting.'

'Not if they loved each other, and their whole happiness depended
upon their marrying each other?' put in Mrs. Hamley, mildly.

'Pooh! away with love! Nay, my dear, we loved each other so dearly
we should never have been happy with any one else; but that's a
different thing. People are not like what they were when we were
young. All the love now-a-days is just silly fancy, and sentimental
romance, as far as I can see.'

Mr. Gibson thought that he had settled everything about Molly's going
to Hamley before he spoke to her about it, which he did not do,
until the morning of the day on which Mrs. Hamley expected her. Then
he said,--'By the way, Molly! you are to go to Hamley this
afternoon; Mrs. Hamley wants you to go to her for a week or two, and
it suits me capitally that you should accept her invitation just
now.'

'Go to Hamley! This afternoon! Papa, you've got some odd reasons at
the back of your head--some mystery, or something. Please, tell me
what it is. Go to Hamley for a week or two! Why, I never was from
home before this without you in all my life.'

'Perhaps not. I don't think you ever walked before you put your feet
to the ground. Everything must have a beginning.'

'It has something to do with that letter that was directed to me,
but that you took out of my hands before I could even see the
writing of the direction.' She fixed her grey eyes on her father's
face, as if she meant to pluck out his secret.

He only smiled and said,--'You're a witch, goosey!'

'Then it had! But if it was a note from Mrs. Hamley, why might I not
see it? I have been wondering if you had some plan in your head ever
since that day--Thursday, was it not? You've gone about in a kind of
thoughtful perplexed way, just like a conspirator. Tell me,
papa'--coming up to him, and putting on a beseeching manner--'why
might not I see that note? and why am I to go to Hamley all on a
sudden?'

'Don't you like to go? Would you rather not?' If she had said that
she did not want to go he would have been rather pleased than
otherwise, although it would have put him into a great perplexity;
but he was beginning to dread the parting from her even for so short
a time. However, she replied directly,--

'I don't know--I dare say I shall like it when I have thought a
little more about it. Just now I am so startled by the suddenness of
the affair, I have not considered whether I shall like it or not. I
shan't like going away from you, I know. Why am I to go, papa?'

'There are three old ladies sitting somewhere, I and thinking about
you just at this very minute; one has a distaff in her hands, and is
spinning a thread; she has come to a knot in it, and is puzzled what
to do with it. Her sister has a great pair of scissors in her hands,
and wants--as she always does, when any difficulty arises in the
smoothness of the thread--to cut it off short; but the third, who
has the most head of the three, plans how to undo the knot; and she
it is who has decided that you are to go to Hamley. The others are
quite convinced by her arguments; so, as the Fates have decreed that
this visit is to be paid, there is nothing left for you and me but
to submit.'

'That is all nonsense, papa, and you are only making me more curious
to find out this hidden reason.'

Mr. Gibson changed his tone, and spoke gravely now. 'There is a
reason, Molly, and one which I do not wish to give. When I tell you
this much, I expect you to be an honourable girl, and to try and not
even conjecture what the reason may be,--much less endeavour to put
little discoveries together till very likely you may find out what I
want to conceal.'

'Papa, I won't even think about your reason again. But then I shall
have to plague you with another question. I have had no new gowns
this year, and I have outgrown all my last summer frocks. I have
only three that I can wear at all. Betty was saying only yesterday
that I ought to have some more.'

'That will do that you have got on, won't it? It is a very pretty
colour.'

'Yes; but, papa,' (holding it out as if she was, going to dance)
'it's made of woollen, and so hot and heavy; and every day it will
be getting warmer.'

'I wish girls could dress like boys,' said Mr. Gibson, with a little
impatience. 'How is a man to know when his daughter wants clothes?
and how is he to rig her out when he finds it out, just when she
needs them most and has not got them?'

'Ah, that's the question!' said Molly, in some despair.

'Can't you go to Miss Rose's? Does not she keep ready-made frocks
for girls of your age?'

'Miss Rose! I never had anything from her in my life,' replied
Molly, in some surprise; for Miss Rose was the great dressmaker and
milliner of the little town, and hitherto Betty had made the girl's
frocks.

'Well, but it seems people consider you as a young woman now, and so
I suppose you must run up milliners' bills like the rest of your
kind. Not that you are to get anything anywhere that you can't pay
for down in ready money. Here's a ten-pound note; go to Miss Rose's,
or Miss anybody's, and get what you want at once. The Hamley
carriage is to come for you at two, and anything that is not quite
ready, can easily be sent by their cart on Saturday, when some of
their people always come to market. Nay, don't thank me! I don't
want to have the money spent, and I don't want you to go and leave
me: I shall miss you, I know; it's only hard necessity that drives
me to send you a-visiting, and to throw away ten pounds on your
clothes. There, go away; you're a plague, and I mean to leave off
loving you as fast as I can.'

'Papa!' holding up her finger as in warning, 'you are getting
mysterious again; and though my honourableness is very strong, I
won't promise that it shall not yield to my curiosity if you go on
hinting at untold secrets.'

'Go away and spend your ten pounds. What did I give it you for but
to keep you quiet?'

Miss Rose's ready-made resources and Molly's taste combined, did not
arrive at a very great success. She bought a lilac print, because it
would wash, and would be cool and pleasant for the mornings; and
this Betty could make at home before Saturday. And for high-days and
holidays--by which was understood afternoons and Sundays--Miss Rose
persuaded her to order a gay-coloured, flimsy plaid silk, which she
assured her was quite the latest fashion in London, and which Molly
thought would please her father's Scotch blood. But when he saw the
scrap which she had brought home as a pattern, he cried out that the
plaid belonged to no clan in existence, and that Molly ought to have
known this by instinct. It was too late to change it, however, for
Miss Rose had promised to cut the dress out as soon as Molly had
left her shop.

Mr. Gibson had hung about the town all the morning instead of going
away on his usual distant rides. He passed his daughter once or
twice in the street, but he did not cross over the way when he was
on the opposite side--only gave her a look or a nod, and went on his
way, scolding himself for his weakness in feeling so much pain at
the thought of her absence for a fortnight or so.

'And, after all,' thought he, 'I am only where I was when she comes
back; at least, if that foolish fellow goes on with his imaginary
fancy. She'll have to come back some time, and if he chooses to
imagine himself constant, there's still the devil to pay.' Presently
he began to hum the air out of the 'Beggar's Opera'--

I wonder any man alive
Should ever rear a daughter.

CHAPTER VI

A VISIT TO THE HAMLEYS

Of course the news of Miss Gibson's approaching departure had spread
through the household before the one o'clock dinner-time came; and
Mr. Coxe's dismal countenance was a source of much inward irritation
to Mr. Gibson, who kept giving the youth sharp glances of savage
reproof for his melancholy face, and the want of appetite; which he
trotted out, with a good deal of sad ostentation; all of which was
lost upon Molly, who was too full of her own personal concerns to
have any thought or observation to spare from them, excepting once
or twice when she thought of the many days that must pass over
before she should again sit down to dinner with her father.

When she named this to him after the meal was over, and they were
sitting together in the drawing-room, waiting for the sound of the
wheels of the Hamley carriage, he laughed, and said,--

'I'm coming over to-morrow to see Mrs. Hamley; and I dare say I shall
dine at their lunch; so you won't have to wait long before you've
the treat of seeing the wild beast feed.'

Then they heard the approaching carriage.

'Oh, papa,' said Molly, catching at his hand, 'I do so wish I was
not going, now that the time is come.'

'Nonsense; don't let us have any sentiment. Have you got your keys?
that's more to the purpose.'

Yes; she had got her keys, and her purse; and her little box was put
up on the seat by the coachman; and her father handed her in; the
door was shut, and she drove away in solitary grandeur, looking back
and kissing her hand to her father, who stood at the gate, in spite
of his dislike of sentiment, as long as the carriage could be seen.
Then he turned into the surgery, and found Mr. Coxe had had his
watching too, and had, indeed, remained at the window gazing,
moonstruck, at the empty road, up which the young lady had
disappeared. Mr. Gibson startled him from his reverie by a sharp,
almost venomous, speech about some small neglect of duty a day or
two before. That night Mr. Gibson insisted on passing by the bedside
of a poor girl whose parents were worn-out by many wakeful anxious
nights succeeding to hard working days.

Molly cried a little, but checked her tears as soon as she
remembered how annoyed her father would have been at the sight of
them. It was very pleasant driving quickly along in the luxurious
carriage, through the pretty green lanes, with dog-roses and
honeysuckles so plentiful and rathe in the hedges, that she once or
twice was tempted to ask the coachman to stop till she had gathered
a nosegay. She began to dread the end of her little journey of seven
miles; the only drawback to which was, that her silk was not a true
clan-tartan, and a little uncertainty as to Miss Rose's punctuality,
At length they came to a village; straggling cottages lined the
road, an old church stood on a kind of green, with the public-house
close by it; there was a great tree, with a bench all round the
trunk, midway between the church gates and the little inn. The
wooden stocks were close to the gates. Molly had long passed the
limit of her rides, but she knew this must be the village of Hamley,
and they must be very near to the hall.

They swung in at the gates of the park in a few minutes, and drove
up through meadow-grass, ripening for hay,--it was no grand
aristocratic deer-park this--to the old red-brick hall; not three
hundred yards from the high-road. There had been no footman sent
with the carriage, but a respectable servant stood at the door, even
before they drew up, ready to receive the expected visitor, and take
her into the drawing-room where his mistress lay awaiting her.

Mrs. Hamley rose from her sofa to give Molly a gentle welcome; she
kept the girl's hand in hers after she had finished speaking,
looking into her face, as if studying it, and unconscious of the
faint blush she called up on the otherwise colourless cheeks.

'I think we shall be great friends,' said she, at length. 'I like
your face, and I am always guided by first impressions. Give me a
kiss, my dear.'

It was far easier to be active than passive during this process of
'swearing eternal friendship,' and Molly willingly kissed the sweet
pale face held up to her.

'I meant to have gone and fetched you myself; but the heat oppresses
me, and I did not feel up to the exertion. I hope you had a pleasant
drive?'

'Very,' said Molly, with shy conciseness.

'And now I will take you to your room; I have had you put close to
me; I thought you would like it better, even though it was a smaller
room than the other.'

She rose languidly, and wrapping her light shawl round her yet
elegant figure, led the way upstairs. Molly's bedroom opened out of
Mrs. Hamley's private sitting-room; on the other side of which was
her own bedroom. She showed Molly this easy means of communication,
and then, telling her visitor she would await her in the
sitting-room, she closed the door, and Molly was left at leisure to
make acquaintance with her surroundings.

First of all, she went to the window to see what was to be seen. A
flower-garden right below; a meadow of ripe grass just beyond,
changing colour in long sweeps, as the soft wind blew over it; great
old forest-trees a little on one side; and, beyond them again, to be
seen only by standing very close to the side of the window-sill, or
by putting her head out, if the window was open, the silver shimmer
of a mere, about a quarter of a mile off. On the opposite side to
the trees and the mere, the look-out was bounded by the old walls
and high-peaked roofs of the extensive farm-buildings. The
deliciousness of the early summer silence was only broken by the
song of the birds, and the nearer hum of bees. Listening to these
sounds, which enhanced the exquisite sense of stillness, and
puzzling out objects obscured by distance or shadow, Molly forgot
herself, and was suddenly startled into a sense of the present by a
sound of voices in the next room--some servant or other speaking to
Mrs. Hamley. Molly hurried to unpack her box, and arrange her few
clothes in the pretty old-fashioned chest of drawers, which was to
serve her as dressing-table as well. All the furniture in the room
was as old-fashioned and as well-preserved as it could be. The
chintz curtains were Indian calico of the last century--the colours
almost washed out, but the stuff itself exquisitely clean. There was
a little strip of bedside carpeting, but the wooden flooring, thus
liberally displayed, was of finely-grained oak, so firmly joined,
plank to plank, that no grain of dust could make its way into the
interstices. There were none of the luxuries of modern days; no
writing-table, or sofa, or pier-glass. In one corner of the walls
was a bracket, holding an Indian jar filled with pot-pourri; and
that and the climbing honeysuckle outside the open window scented
the room more exquisitely than any ~toilette~ perfumes. Molly laid
out her white gown (of last year's date and size) upon the bed,
ready for the (to her new) operation of dressing for dinner, and
having arranged her hair and dress, and taken out her company
worsted-work,' she opened the door softly, and saw Mrs. Hamley lying
on the sofa.

'Shall we stay up here, m dear? I think it is pleasanter than down
below; and then I shall not have to come upstairs again at
dressing-time.'

'I shall like it very much,' replied Molly.

'Ah! you've got your sewing, like a good girl,' said Mrs. Hamley.
'Now, I don't sew much. I live alone a great deal. You see, both my
boys are at Cambridge, and the squire is out of doors all day
long--so I have almost forgotten how to sew. I read a great deal. Do
you like reading?'

'It depends upon the kind of book,' said Molly. 'I'm afraid I don't
like "steady reading," as papa calls it.'

'But you like poetry!' said Mrs. Hamley, almost interrupting Molly.
'I was sure you did, from your face. Have you read this last poem of
Mrs. Hemans? Shall I read it aloud to you?'

So she began. Molly was not so much absorbed in listening but that
she could glance round the room. The character of the furniture was
much the same as in her own. Old-fashioned, of handsome material,
and faultlessly clean; the age and the foreign appearance of it gave
an aspect of comfort and picturesqueness to the whole apartment. On
the walls there hung some crayon sketches--portraits. She thought
she could make out that one of them was a likeness of Mrs. Hamley, in
her beautiful youth. And then she became interested in the poem, and
dropped her work, and listened in a manner that was after Mrs
Hamley's own heart. When the reading of the poem was ended, Mrs
Hamley replied to some of Molly's words of admiration, by saying,--

'Ah! I think I must read you some of Osborne's poetry some day;
under seal of secrecy, remember; but I really fancy they are almost
as good as Mrs. Hemans'.'

To be 'nearly as good as Mrs. Hemans' was saying as much to the young
ladies of that day, as saying that poetry is nearly as good as
Tennyson's would be in this. Molly looked up with eager interest.

'Mr. Osborne Hamley? Does your son write poetry?'

'Yes. I really think I may say he is a poet. He is a very brilliant,
clever young man, and he quite hopes to get a fellowship at Trinity.
He says he is sure to be high up among the wranglers, and that he
expects to get one of the Chancellor's medals. That is his
likeness--the one hanging against the wall behind you.'

Molly turned round, and saw one of the crayon sketches--representing
two boys, in the most youthful kind of jackets and trousers, and
falling collars. The elder was sitting down, reading intently. The
younger was standing by him, and evidently trying to call the
attention of the reader off to some object out of doors--out of the
window of the very room in which they were sitting, as Molly
discovered when she began to recognize the articles of furniture
faintly indicated in the picture.

'I like their faces!' said Molly. 'I suppose it is so long ago now,
that I may speak of their likenesses to you as if they were somebody
else; may not I?'

'Certainly,' said Mrs. Hamley, as soon as she understood what Molly
meant. 'Tell me just what you think of them, my dear; it will amuse
me to compare your impressions with what they really are.'

'Oh! but I did not mean to guess at their characters. I could not do
it; and it would be impertinent, if I could. I can only speak about
their faces as I see them in the picture.'

'Well! tell me what you think of them!'

'The eldest--the reading boy--is very beautiful; but I can't quite
make out his face yet, because his head is down, and I can't see the
eyes. That is the Mr. Osborne Hamley who writes poetry?'

'Yes. He is not quite so handsome now; but he was a beautiful boy.
Roger was never to be compared with him.'

'No; he is not handsome. And yet I like his face. I can see his
eyes. They are grave and solemn-looking; but all the rest of his
face is rather merry than otherwise. It looks too steady and sober,
too good a face, to go tempting his brother to leave his lesson.'

'Ah! but it was not a lesson. I remember the painter, Mr. Green, once
saw Osborne reading some poetry, while Roger was trying to persuade
him to come out and have a ride in the hay-cart--that was the
"motive" of the picture, to speak artistically. Roger is not much of
a reader; at least, he doesn't care for poetry, and books of
romance, or sentiment. He is so fond of natural history; and that
takes him, like the squire, a great deal out of doors; and when he
is in, he is always reading scientific books that bear upon his
pursuits. He is a good, steady fellow, though, and gives us great
satisfaction, but he is not likely to have such a brilliant career
as Osborne.'

Molly tried to find out in the picture the characteristics of the
two boys, as they were now explained to her by their mother; and in
questions and answers about the various drawings hung round the room
the time passed away until the dressing-bell rang for the six
o'clock dinner.

Molly was rather dismayed by the offers of the maid whom Mrs. Hamley
had sent to assist her. 'I am afraid they expect me to be very
smart,' she kept thinking to herself. 'If they do, they'll be
disappointed; that's all. But I wish my plaid silk gown had been
ready.'

She looked at herself in the glass with some anxiety, for the first
time in her life. She saw a slight, lean figure, promising to be
tall; a complexion browner than cream-coloured, although in a year
or two it might have that tint; plentiful curly black hair, tied up
in a bunch behind with a rose--coloured ribbon; long, almond-shaped,
soft grey eyes, shaded both above and below by curling black
eye-lashes.

'I don't think I am pretty,' thought Molly, as she turned away from
the glass; 'and yet I am not sure.' She would have been sure, if,
instead of inspecting herself with such solemnity, she had smiled
her own sweet merry smile, and called out the gleam of her teeth,
and the charm of her dimples.

She found her way downstairs into the drawing-room in good time; she
could look about her, and learn how to feel at home in her new
quarters. The room was forty-feet long or so, fitted up with yellow
satin at some distant period; high spindle-legged chairs and
pembroke-tables abounded. The carpet was of the same date as the
curtains, and was threadbare in many places; and in others was
covered with drugget. Stands of plants, great jars of flowers, old
Indian china and cabinets gave the room the pleasant aspect it
certainly had. And to add to it, there were five high, long windows
on one side of the room, all opening to the prettiest bit of
flower-garden in the grounds--or what was considered as
such--brilliant-coloured, geometrically-shaped beds, converging to a
sun-dial in the midst. The squire came in abruptly, and in his
morning dress; he stood at the door, as if surprised at the
white-robed stranger in possession of his hearth. Then, suddenly
remembering himself, but not before Molly had begun to feel very
hot, he said,--

'Why, God bless my soul, I'd quite forgotten you; you're Miss
Gibson, Gibson's daughter, aren't you? Come to pay us a visit? I'm
sure I'm very glad to see you, my dear.'

By this time, they had met in the middle of the room, and he was
shaking Molly's hand with vehement friendliness, intended to make up
for his not knowing her at first.

'I must go and dress, though,' he said, looking at his soiled
gaiters. 'Madam likes it. It's one of her fine London ways, and
she's broken me into it at last. Very good plan, though, and quite
right to make oneself fit for ladies' society. Does your father
dress for dinner, Miss Gibson?' He did not stay to wait for her
answer, but hastened away to perform his ~toilette~.

They dined at a small table in a great large room. There were so few
articles of furniture in it, and the apartment itself was so vast,
that Molly longed for the snugness of the home dining-room; nay, it
is to be feared that, before the stately dinner at Hamley Hall came
to an end, she even regretted the crowded chairs and tables, the
hurry of eating, the quick unformal manner in which everybody seemed
to finish their meal as fast as possible, and to return to the work
they had left. She tried to think that at six o'clock all the
business of the day was ended, and that people might linger if they
chose. She measured the distance from the sideboard to the table
with her eye, and made allowances for the men who had to carry
things backwards and forwards; but, all the same, this dinner
appeared to her a wearisome business, prolonged because the squire
liked it, for Mrs. Hamley seemed tired out. She ate even less than
Molly, and sent for fan and smelling--bottle to amuse herself with,
until at length the table-cloth was cleared away, and the dessert
was put upon a mahogany table, polished like a looking-glass.

The squire had hitherto been too busy to talk, except about the
immediate concerns of the table, and one or two of the greatest
breaks to the usual monotony of his days; a monotony in which he
delighted, but which sometimes became oppressive to his wife. Now,
however, peeling his orange, he turned to Molly,--

'To-morrow you'll have to do this for me Miss Gibson.'

'Shall I? I'll do it to-day, if you like, sir.'

'No; to-day I shall treat you as a visitor, with all proper
ceremony. To-morrow I shall send you errands, and call you by your
Christian name.'

'I shall like that,' said Molly.

'I was wanting to call you something less formal than Miss Gibson,'
said Mrs. Hamley.

'My name is Molly. It is an old-fashioned name, and I was christened
Mary. But papa likes Molly.'

'That's right. Keep to the good old fashions, my dear.'

'Well, I must say I think Mary is prettier than Molly, and quite as
old a name, too,' said Mrs. Hamley.

'I think it was,' said Molly, lowering her voice, and dropping her
eyes, 'because mamma was Mary, and I was called Molly while she
lived.'

'Ah, poor thing,' said the squire, not perceiving his wife's signs
to change the subject, 'I remember how sorry every one was when she
died; no one thought she was delicate, she had such a fresh colour,
till all at once she popped off, as one may say.'

'It must have been a terrible blow to your father,' said Mrs. Hamley,
seeing that Molly did not know what to answer.

'Ay, ay. It came so sudden, so soon after they were married.'

'I thought it was nearly four years,' said Molly.

'And four years is soon--is a short time to a couple who look to
spending their lifetime together. Every one thought Gibson would
have married again.'

'Hush,' said Mrs. Hamley, seeing in Molly's eyes and change of colour
how completely this was a new idea to her. But the squire was not so
easily stopped.

'Well--I'd perhaps better not have said it, but it's the truth; they
did. He's not likely to marry now, so one may say it out. Why, your
father is past forty, isn't he?'

'Forty-three. I don't believe he ever thought of marrying again,'
said Molly, recurring to the idea, as one does to that of danger
which has passed by, without one's being aware of it.

'No! I don't believe he did my dear. He looks to me just like a man
who would be constant to the memory of his wife. You must not mind
what the squire says.'

'Ah! you'd better go away, if you're going to teach Miss Gibson such
treason as that against the master of the house.' Molly went into
the drawing-room with Mrs. Hamley, but her thoughts did not change
with the room. She could not help dwelling on the danger which she
fancied she had escaped, and was astonished at her own stupidity at
never having imagined such a possibility as her father's second
marriage. She felt that she was answering Mrs. Hamley's remarks in a
very unsatisfactory manner.

'There is papa, with the squire!' she suddenly exclaimed. There they
were coming across the flower-garden from the stable-yard, her
father switching his boots with his riding whip, in order to make
them presentable in Mrs. Hamley's drawing-room. He looked so exactly
like his usual self, his home-self, that the seeing him in the flesh
was the most efficacious way of dispelling the phantom fears of a
second wedding, which were beginning to harass his daughter's mind;
and the pleasant conviction that he could not rest till he had come
over to see how she was going on in her new home, stole into her
heart, although he spoke but little to her, and that little was all
in a joking tone. After he had gone away, the squire undertook to
teach her cribbage; and she was happy enough now to give him all her
attention. He kept on prattling while they played; sometimes in
relation to the cards; at others telling her of small occurrences
which he thought might interest her.

'So you don't know my boys, even by sight. I should have thought you
would have done, for they are fond enough of riding into
Hollingford; and I know Roger has often enough been to borrow books
from your father. Roger is a scientific sort of a fellow. Osborne is
clever, like this mother. I should not wonder if he published a book
some day. You're not counting right, Miss Gibson. Why, I could cheat
you as easily as possible.' And so on, till the butler came in with
a solemn look, placed a large prayer-book before his master, who
huddled the cards away in a hurry, as if caught in an incongruous
employment; and then the maids and men trooped in to prayers--the
windows were still open, and the sounds of the solitary corncrake,
and the owl hooting in the trees, mingled with the words spoken.
Then to bed; and so ended the day.

Molly looked out of her chamber window--leaning on the sill, and
snuffing up the night odours of the honeysuckle. The soft velvet
darkness hid everything that was at any distance from her; although
she was as conscious of their presence as if she had seen them.

'I think I shall be very happy here,' was in Molly's thoughts, as
she turned away at length, and began to prepare for bed. Before long
the squire's words, relating to her father's second marriage, came
across her, and spoilt the sweet peace of her final thoughts. 'Who
could he have married?' she asked herself. 'Miss Eyre? Miss
Browning? Miss Phoebe? Miss Goodenough?' One by one, each of these
was rejected for sufficient reasons. Yet the unsatisfied question
rankled in her mind, and darted out of ambush to disturb her dreams.

Mrs. Hamley did not come down to breakfast; and Molly found out,
with a little dismay, that the squire and she were to have it by
themselves. On this first morning he put aside his newspapers--one
an old established Tory journal, with all the local and county news,
which was the most interesting to him; the other the ~Morning
Chronicle~, which he called his dose of bitters, and which called
out many a strong expression and tolerably pungent oath. To-day,
however, he was 'on his manners,' as he afterwards explained to
Molly; and he plunged about, trying to find ground for a
conversation. He could talk of his wife and his sons, his estate,
and his mode of farming; his tenants, and the mismanagement of the
last county election. Molly's interests were her father, Miss Eyre,
her garden and pony; in a fainter degree the Miss Brownings, the
Cumnor Charity School, and the new gown that was to come from Miss
Rose's; into the midst of which the one great question, 'Who was it
that people thought it was possible papa might marry?' kept popping
up into her mouth, like a troublesome Jack-in-the-box. For the
present, however, the lid was snapped down upon the intruder as
often as he showed his head between her teeth. They were very polite
to each other during the meal; and it was not a little tiresome to
both. When it was ended the squire withdrew into his study to read
the untasted newspapers. It was the custom to call the room in which
Squire Hamley kept his coats, boots, and gaiters, his different
sticks and favourite spud, his gun and fishing-rods, the study.
There was a bureau in it, and a three-cornered arm-chair, but no
books were visible. The greater part of them were kept in a large,
musty-smelling room, in an unfrequented part of the house; so
unfrequented that the housemaid often neglected to open the
window-shutters, which looked into a part of the grounds over-grown
with the luxuriant growth of shrubs. Indeed, it was a tradition in
the servants' hall that, in the late squire's time--he who had been
plucked at college--the library windows had been boarded up to avoid
paying the window-tax. And when the 'young gentlemen' were at home
the housemaid, without a single direction to that effect, was
regular in her charge of this room; opened the windows and lighted
fires daily, and dusted the handsomely-bound volumes, which were
really a very fair collection of the standard literature in the
middle of the last century. All the books that had been purchased
since that time were held in small book-cases between each two of
the drawing-room windows, and in Mrs. Hamley's own sitting-room
upstairs. Those in the drawing-room were quite enough to employ
Molly; indeed she was so deep in one of Sir Walter Scott's novels
that she jumped as if she had been shot, when an hour or so after
breakfast the squire came to the gravel-path outside one of the
windows, and called to ask her if she would like to come out of
doors and go about the garden and home-fields with him.

'It must be a little dull for you, my girl, all by yourself, with
nothing but books to look at, in the mornings here; but you see,
madam has a fancy for being quiet in the mornings: she told your
father about it, and so did I, but I felt sorry for you all the
same, when I saw you sitting on the ground all alone in the
drawing-room.'

Molly had been in the very middle of the ~Bride of Lammermoor~, and
would gladly have stayed in-doors to finish it, but she felt the
squire's kindness all the same. They went in and out of
old-fashioned greenhouses, over trim lawns, the squire unlocked the
great walled kitchen-garden, and went about giving directions to
gardeners; and all the time Molly followed him like a little dog,
her mind quite full of 'Ravenswood' and 'Lucy Ashton.' Presently,
every place near the house had been inspected and regulated, and the
squire was more at liberty to give his attention to his companion,
as they passed through the little wood that separated the gardens
from the adjoining fields. Molly, too, plucked away her thoughts
from the seventeenth century; and, somehow or other, that one
question, which had so haunted her before, came out of her lips
before she was aware--a literal impromptu,--

'Who did people think papa would marry? That time--long ago--soon
after mamma died?'

She dropped her voice very soft and low, as she spoke the last
words. The squire turned round upon her, and looked at her face, he
knew not why. It was very grave, a little pale, but her steady eyes
almost commanded some kind of answer.

'Whew,' said he, whistling to gain time; not that he had anything
definite to say, for no one had ever had any reason to join Mr
Gibson's name with any known lady: it was only a loose conjecture
that had been hazarded on the probabilities--a young widower, with a
little girl.

'I never heard of any one--his name was never coupled with any
lady's--'twas only in the nature of things that he should marry
again; he may do it yet, for aught I know, and I don't think it
would be a bad move either. I told him so, the last time but one he
was here.'

'And what did he say?' asked breathless Molly.

'Oh: he only smiled, and said nothing. You shouldn't take up words
so seriously, my dear. Very likely he may never think of marrying
again, and if he did, it would be a very good thing both for him and
for you!'

Molly muttered something, as if to herself, but the squire might
have heard it if he had chosen. As it was, he wisely turned the
current of the conversation.

'Look at that!' he said, as they suddenly came upon the mere, or
large pond. There was a small island in the middle of the glassy
water, on which grew tall trees, dark Scotch firs in the centre,
silvery shimmering willows close to the water's edge. 'We must get
you punted over there, some of these days. I'm not fond of using the
boat at this time of the year, because the young birds are still in
the nests among the reeds and water-plants; but we'll go. There are
coots and grebes.'

'Oh, look, there's a swan!'

'Yes; there are two pair of them here. And in those trees there is
both a rookery and a heronry; the herons ought to be here by now,
for they're off to the sea in August, but I have not seen one yet.
Stay! is not that one--that fellow on a stone, with his long neck
bent down, looking into the water?'

'Yes! I think so. I have never seen a heron, only pictures of them.'

'They and the rooks are always at war, which does not do for such
near neighbours. If both herons leave the nest they are building,
the rooks come and tear it to pieces; and once Roger showed me a
long straggling fellow of a heron, with a flight of rooks after him,
with no friendly purpose in their minds, I'll be bound. Roger knows
a deal of natural history, and finds out queer things sometimes. He
would have been off a dozen times during this walk of ours, if he'd
been here; his eyes are always wandering about, and see twenty
things where I only see one. Why! I have known him bolt into a copse
because he saw something fifteen yards off--some plant, maybe, which
he would tell me was very rare, though I should say I'd seen its
marrow at every turn in the woods; and, if we came upon such a thing
as this,' touching a delicate film of a cobweb upon a leaf with his
stick, as he spoke, 'why, he could tell you what insect or spider
made it, and if it lived in rotten fir-wood, or in a cranny of good
sound timber, or deep down in the ground, or up in the sky, or
anywhere. It is a pity they don't take honours in Natural History at
Cambridge. Roger would be safe enough if they did.'

'Mr. Osborne Hamley is very clever, is he not?' Molly asked, timidly.

'Oh, yes. Osborne's a bit of a genius. His mother looks for great
things from Osborne. I'm rather proud of him myself. He'll get a
Trinity fellowship, if they play him fair. As I was saying at the
magistrates' meeting yesterday, "I've got a son who will make a
noise at Cambridge, or I'm very much mistaken." Now, is it not a
queer quip of Nature,' continued the squire, turning his honest face
towards Molly, as if he was going to impart a new idea to her, 'that
I, a Hamley of Hamley, straight in descent from nobody knows
when--the Heptarchy, they say--What's the date of the Heptarchy?'

'I don't know,' said Molly, startled at being thus appealed to.

'Well! it was some time before King Alfred, because he was the King
of all England, you know; but, as I was saying, here am I, of as
good and as old a descent as any man in England, and I doubt if a
stranger to look at me, would take me for a gentleman, with my red
face, great hands and feet, and thick figure, fourteen stone, and
never less than twelve even when I was a young man;' and there's
Osborne, who takes after his mother, who could not tell her
great-grandfather from Adam, bless her; and Osborne has a girl's
delicate face, and a slight make, and hands and feet as small as a
lady's. He takes after madam's side, who, as I said, can't tell who
was their grandfather. Now, Roger is like me, a Hamley of Hamley,
and no one who sees him in the street will ever think that
red-brown, big-boned, clumsy chap is of gentle blood. Yet all those
Cumnor people, you make such ado of in Hollingford, are mere muck of
yesterday. I was talking to madam the other day about Osborne's
marrying a daughter of Lord Hollingford's--that's to say, if he had
a daughter--he's only got boys, as it happens; but I'm not sure if I
should consent to it. I really am not sure; for you see Osborne will
have had a first-rate education, and his family dates from the
Heptarchy, while I should be glad to know where the Cumnor folk were
in the time of Queen Anne?' He walked on, pondering the question of
whether he could have given his consent to this impossible marriage;
and after some time, and when Molly had quite forgotten the subject
to which he alluded, he broke out with--'No! I am sure I should have
looked higher. So, perhaps, it's as well my Lord Hollingford has
only boys.'

After a while, he thanked Molly for her companionship, with
old-fashioned courtesy; and told her that he thought, by this time,
madam would be up and dressed, and glad to have her young visitor
with her. He pointed out the deep purple house, with its stone
facings, as it was seen at some distance between the trees, and
watched her protectingly on her way along the field-paths.

'That's a nice girl of Gibson's,' quoth he to himself. 'But what a
tight hold the wench got of the notion of his marrying again! One
had need be on one's guard as to what one says before her. To think
of her never having thought of the chance of a step-mother. To be
sure, a step-mother to a girl is a different thing to a second wife
to a man!'

CHAPTER VII

FORESHADOWS OF LOVE PERILS

If Squire Hamley had been unable to tell Molly who had ever been
thought of as her father's second wife, fate was all this time
preparing an answer of a pretty positive kind to her wondering
curiosity. But fate is a cunning hussy, and builds up her plans as
imperceptibly as a bird builds her nest; and with much the same kind
of unconsidered trifles.' The first 'trifle' of an event was the
disturbance which Jenny (Mr. Gibson's cook) chose to make at Bethia's
being dismissed. Bethia was a distant relation and ~protegee~ of
Jenny's, and she chose to say it was Mr. Coxe the tempter who ought
to have 'been sent packing,' not Bethia the tempted, the victim. In
this view there was quite enough plausibility to make Mr. Gibson feel
that he had been rather unjust. He had, however, taken care to
provide Bethia with another situation, to the full as good as that
which she held in his family. Jenny, nevertheless, chose to give
warning; and though Mr. Gibson knew full well from former experience
that her warnings were words, not deeds, he hated the discomfort,
the uncertainty,--the entire disagreeableness of meeting a woman at
any time in his house, who wore a grievance and an injury upon her
face as legibly as Jenny took care to do.

Down into the middle of this small domestic trouble came another,
and one of greater consequence. Miss Eyre had gone with her old
mother, and her orphan nephews and nieces, to the sea-side, during
Molly's absence, which was only intended at first to last for a
fortnight. After about ten days of this time had elapsed, Mr. Gibson
received a beautifully written, beautifully worded, admirably
folded, and most neatly sealed letter from Miss Eyre. Her eldest
nephew had fallen ill of scarlet fever, and there was every
probability that the younger children would be attacked by the same
complaint. It was distressing enough for poor Miss Eyre--this
additional expense, this anxiety--the long detention from home which
the illness involved. But she said not a word of any inconvenience
to herself; she only apologized with humble sincerity for her
inability to return at the appointed time to her charge in Mr
Gibson's family; meekly adding, that perhaps it was as well, for
Molly had never had the scarlet fever, and even if Miss Eyre had
been able to leave the orphan children to return to her employments,
it might not have been a safe or a prudent step.

'To be sure not,' said Mr. Gibson, tearing the letter in two, and
throwing it into the hearth, where he soon saw it burnt to ashes. 'I
wish I'd a five-pound house and not a woman within ten miles of me.
I might have some peace then.' Apparently, he forgot Mr. Coxe's
powers of making mischief; but indeed he might have traced that evil
back to unconscious Molly. The martyr-cook's entrance to take away
the breakfast things, which she announced by a heavy sigh, roused Mr
Gibson from thought to action.

'Molly must stay a little longer at Hamley,' he resolved. 'They've
often asked for her, and now they'll have enough of her, I think.
But I can't have her back here just yet; and so the best I can do
for her is to leave her where she is. Mrs. Hamley seems very fond of
her, and the child is looking happy, and stronger in health. I'll
ride round by Hamley to-day at any rate, and see how the land lies.'

He found Mrs. Hamley lying on a sofa placed under the shadow of the
great cedar-tree on the lawn. Molly was flitting about her,
gardening away under her directions; tying up the long sea-green
stalks of bright budded carnations, snipping off dead roses.

'Oh! here's papa!' she cried out joyfully, as he rode up to the
white paling which separated the trim lawn and trimmer flower-garden
from the rough park-like ground in front of the house.

'Come in--come here--through the drawing-room window,' said Mrs
Hamley, raising herself on her elbow. 'We've got a rose-tree to show
you that Molly has budded all by herself. We are both so proud of
it.'

So Mr. Gibson rode round to the stables, left his horse there, and
made his way through the house to the open-air summer-parlour under
the cedar-tree, where there were chairs, a table, books, and tangled
work. Somehow, he rather disliked asking for Molly to prolong her
visit; so he determined to swallow his bitter first, and then take
the pleasure of the delicious day, the sweet repose, the murmurous,
scented air. Molly stood by him, her hand on his shoulder. He sate
opposite to Mrs. Hamley.

'I have come here to-day to ask for a favour,' he began.

'Granted before you name it. Am not I a bold woman?'

He smiled and bowed, but went straight on with his speech.

'Miss Eyre, who has been Molly's--governess, I suppose I must call
her--for many years, writes to-day to say that one of the little
nephews she took with her to Newport while Molly was staying here,
has caught the scarlet fever.'

'I guess your request. I make it before you do. I beg for dear
little Molly to stay on here. Of course Miss Eyre can't come back to
you; and of course Molly must stay here!'

'Thank you; thank you very much. That was my request.'

Molly's hand stole down to his, and nestled in that firm compact
grasp.

'Papa!--Mrs. Hamley!--I know you'll both understand me--but mayn't I
go home? I am very very happy here; but--oh papa! I think I should
like to be at home with you best.'

An uncomfortable suspicion flashed across his mind. He pulled her
round, and looked straight and piercingly into her innocent face.
Her colour came at his unwonted scrutiny, but her sweet eyes were
filled with wonder, rather than with any feeling which he dreaded to
find. For an instant he had doubted whether young red-headed Mr
Coxe's love might not have called out a response in his daughter s
breast; but he was quite clear now.

'Molly, you're rude to begin with. I don't know how you're to make
your peace with Mrs. Hamley, I'm sure. And in the next place, do you
think you're wiser than I am; or that I don't want you at home, if
all other things were conformable? Stay where you are, and be
thankful.'

Molly knew him well enough to be certain that the prolongation of
her visit at Hamley was quite a decided affair in his mind; and then
she was smitten with a sense of ingratitude. She left her father,
and went to Mrs. Hamley, and bent over and kissed her; but she did
not speak. Mrs. Hamley took hold of her hand, and made room on the
sofa for her.

'I was going to have asked for a longer visit the next time you
came, Mr. Gibson. We are such happy friends, are not we, Molly? and
now that this good little nephew of Miss Eyre's----'

'I wished he was whipped,' said Mr. Gibson.

'--has given us such a capital reason, I shall keep Molly for a real
long visitation. You must come over and see us very often. There's a
room here for you always, you know; and I don't see why you should
not start on your rounds from Hamley every morning, just as well as
from Hollingford.'

'Thank you. If you had not been so kind to my little girl, I might
be tempted to say something rude in answer to your last speech.'

'Pray say it. You won't be easy till you have given it out, I know.'

'Mrs. Hamley has found out from whom I get my rudeness,' said Molly,
triumphantly. 'It's an hereditary quality.'

'I was going to say that proposal of yours that I should sleep at
Hamley was just like a woman's idea--all kindness, and no common
sense. How in the world would my patients find me out, seven miles
from my accustomed place? They'd be sure to send for some other
doctor, and I should be ruined in a month.'

'Could not they send on here? A messenger costs very little.'

'Fancy old Goody Henbury struggling up to my surgery, groaning at
every step, and then being told to just step on seven miles farther!
Or take the other end of society:--I don't think my Lady Cumnor's
smart groom would thank me for having to ride on to Hamley every
time his mistress wants me.'

'Well, well, I submit. I am a woman. Molly, thou art a woman! Go and
order some strawberries and cream for this father of yours. Such
humble offices fall within the province of women. Strawberries and
cream are all kindness and no common sense, for they'll give him a
horrid fit of indigestion.'

'Please speak for yourself, Mrs. Hamley,' said Molly, merrily. 'I
ate--oh, such a great basketful yesterday, and the squire went
himself to the dairy and brought me out a great bowl of cream when
he found me at my busy work. And I'm as well as ever I was, to-day,
and never had a touch of indigestion near me.'

'She's a good girl,' said her father, when she had danced out of
hearing. The words were not quite an inquiry, he was so certain of
his answer. There was a mixture of tenderness and trust in his eyes,
as he awaited the reply, which came in a moment.

'She's a darling! I cannot tell you how fond the squire and I are of
her; both of us. I am so delighted to think she is not to go away
for a long time. The first thing I thought of this morning when I
wakened up, was that she would soon have to return to you, unless I
could persuade you into leaving her with me a little longer. And now
she must stay--oh, two months at least.'

It was quite true that the squire had become very fond of Molly. The
charm of having a young girl dancing and singing inarticulate
ditties about the house and garden, was indescribable in its novelty
to him. And then Molly was. so willing and so wise; ready both to
talk and to listen at the right times. Mrs. Hamley was quite right in
speaking of her husband's fondness for Molly. But either she herself
chose a wrong time for telling him of the prolongation of the girl's
visit, or one of the fits of temper to which he was liable, but
which he generally strove to check in the presence of his wife, was
upon him; at any rate, he received the news in anything but a
gracious frame of mind.

'Stay longer! Did Gibson ask for it?' 'Yes! I don't see what else is
to become of her; Miss Eyre away and all. It's a very awkward
position for a motherless girl like her to be at the head of a
household with two young men in it.'

'That's Gibson's look-out; he should have thought of it before
taking pupils, or apprentices, or whatever he calls them.'

'My dear squire! why, I thought you'd be as glad as I was--as I am
to keep Molly. I asked her to stay for an indefinite time; two
months at least.'

'And to be in the house with Osborne! Roger, too, will be at home.'

By the cloud in the squire's eyes, Mrs. Hamley read his mind.

'Oh, she's not at all the sort of girl young men of their age would
take to, We like her because we see what she really is; but lads of
one or two and twenty want all the accessories of a young woman.'

'Want what?' growled the squire.

'Such things as becoming dress, style of manner. They would not at
their age even see that she is pretty; their ideas of beauty would
include colour.'

'I suppose all that's very clever; but I don't understand it. All I
know is, that it's a very dangerous thing to shut two young men of
one and three and twenty up in a country-house like this, with a
girl of seventeen--choose what her gowns may be like, or her hair,
or her eyes. And I told you particularly I didn't want Osborne, or
either of them, indeed, to be falling in love with her. I'm very
much annoyed.'

Mrs. Hamley's face fell; she became a little pale.

'Shall we make arrangements for their stopping away while she is
here; staying up at Cambridge, or reading with some one? going
abroad for a month or two?'

'No; you've been reckoning this ever so long on their coming home.
I've seen the marks of the weeks on your almanack. I'd sooner speak
to Gibson, and tell him he must take his daughter away, for it's not
convenient to us----'

'My dear Roger! I beg you will do no such thing. It will be so
unkind; it will give the lie to all I said yesterday. Don't, please,
do that. For my sake, don't speak to Mr. Gibson!'

'Well, well, don't put yourself in a flutter,' for he was afraid of
her becoming hysterical; 'I'll speak to Osborne when he comes home,
and tell him how much I should dislike anything of the kind.'

'And Roger is always far too full of his natural history and
comparative anatomy, and messes of that sort, to be thinking of
falling in love with Venus herself, He has not the sentiment and
imagination of Osborne.'

'Ah, you don't know; you never can be sure about a young man! But
with Roger it wouldn't so much signify. He would know he couldn't
marry for years to come.'

All that afternoon the squire tried to steer clear of Molly, to whom
he felt himself to have been an inhospitable traitor. But she was so
perfectly unconscious of his shyness of her, and so merry and sweet
in her behaviour as a welcome guest, never distrusting him for a
moment, however gruff he might be, that by the next morning she had
completely won him round, and they were quite on the old terms
again. At breakfast this very morning, a letter was passed from the
squire to his wife, and back again, without a word as to its
contents; but--

'Fortunate!'

'Yes! very!'

Little did Molly apply these expressions to the piece of news Mrs
Hamley told her in the course of the day; namely, that her son
Osborne had received an invitation to stay with a friend in the
neighbourhood of Cambridge, and perhaps to make a tour on the
Continent with him subsequently; and that, consequently, he would
not accompany his brother when Roger came home.

Molly was very sympathetic.

'Oh, dear! I am so sorry!'

Mrs. Hamley was thankful her husband was not present, Molly spoke the
words so heartily.

'You have been thinking so long of his coming home. I am afraid it
is a great disappointment.'

Mrs. Hamley smiled--relieved.

'Yes! it is a disappointment certainly, but we must think of
Osborne's pleasure. And with his poetical mind, he will write us
such delightful travelling letters. Poor fellow! he must be going
into the examination to-day! Both his father and I feel sure,
though, that he will be a high wrangler.' Only--I should like to
have seen him, my own dear boy. But it is best as it is.'

Molly was a little puzzled by this speech, but soon put it out of
her head. It was a disappointment to her, too, that she should not
see this beautiful, brilliant young man, his mother's hero. From
time to time her maiden fancy had dwelt upon what he would be like;
how the lovely boy of the picture in Mrs. Hamley's dressing-room
would have changed in the ten years that had elapsed since the
likeness was taken; if he would read poetry aloud; if he would even
read his own poetry. However, in the never-ending feminine business
of the day, she soon forgot her own disappointment; it only came
back to her on first wakening the next morning, as a vague something
that was not quite so pleasant as she had anticipated, and then was
banished as a subject of regret. Her days at Hamley were well filled
up with the small duties that would have belonged to a daughter of
the house had there been one. She made breakfast for the lonely
squire, and would willingly have carried up madam's, but that daily
piece of work belonged to the squire, and was jealously guarded by
him. She read the smaller print of the newspapers aloud to him, city
articles, money and corn-markets included. She strolled about the
gardens with him, gathering fresh flowers, meanwhile, to deck the
drawing-room against Mrs. Hamley should come down. She was her
companion when she took her drives in the close carriage; they read
poetry and mild literature together in Mrs. Hamley's sitting-room
upstairs. She was quite clever at cribbage now, and could beat the
squire if she took pains. Besides these things, there were her own
independent ways of employing herself. She used to try to practise a
daily hour on the old grand piano in the solitary drawing-room,
because she had promised Miss Eyre she would do so. And she had
found her way into the library, and used to undo the heavy bars of
the shutters if the housemaid had forgotten this duty, and mount the
ladder, sitting on the steps, for an hour at a time, deep in some
book of the old English classics. The summer days were very short to
this happy girl of seventeen.

CHAPTER VIII

DRIFTING INTO DANGER

On Thursday, the quiet country household was stirred through all its
fibres with the thought of Roger's coming home. Mrs. Hamley had not
seemed quite so well, or quite in such good spirits for two or three
days before; and the squire himself had appeared to be put out
without any visible cause. They had not chosen to tell Molly that
Osborne's name had only appeared very low down in the mathematical
tripos. So all that their visitor knew was that something was out of
tune, and she hoped that Roger's coming home would set it to rights,
for it was beyond the power of her small cares and wiles.

On Thursday, the housemaid apologized to her for some slight
negligence in her bedroom, by saying she had been busy scouring Mr
Roger's rooms. 'Not but what they were as clean as could be
beforehand; but mistress would always have the young gentlemen's
rooms cleaned afresh before they came home. If it had been Mr
Osborne, the whole house would have had to be done; but to be sure
he was the eldest son, so it was but likely.' Molly was amused at
this testimony to the rights of heirship; but somehow she herself
had fallen into the family manner of thinking that nothing was too
great or too good for 'the eldest son.' In his father's eyes,
Osborne was the representative of the ancient house of Hamley of
Hamley, the future owner of the land which had been theirs for a
thousand years. His mother clung to him because they two were cast
in the same mould, both physically and mentally--because he bore her
maiden name. She had indoctrinated Molly with her faith, and, in
spite of her amusement at the housemaid's speech, the girl visitor
would have been as anxious as any one to show her feudal loyalty to
the heir, if indeed it had been he that was coming. After luncheon,
Mrs. Hamley went to rest, in preparation for Roger's return; and
Molly also retired to her own room, feeling that it would be better
for her to remain there until dinner-time, and so to leave the
father and mother to receive their boy in privacy. She took a book
of MS. poems with her; they were all of Osborne Hamley's
composition; and his mother had read some of them aloud to her young
visitor more than once. Molly had asked permission to copy one or
two of those which were her greatest favourites; and this quiet
summer afternoon she took this copying for her employment, sitting
at the pleasant open window, and losing herself in dreamy out-looks
into the gardens and woods, quivering in the noontide heat. The
house was so still, in its silence it might have been the 'moated
grange;' the booming buzz of the blue flies, in the great staircase
window, seemed the loudest noise in-doors. And there was scarcely a
sound out-of-doors but the humming of bees, in the flower-beds below
the window. Distant voices from the far-away fields in which they
were making hay--the scent of which came in sudden wafts distinct
from that of the nearer roses and honey-suckles--these merry piping
voices just made Molly feel the depth of the present silence. She
had left off copying, her hand weary with the unusual exertion of so
much writing, and she was lazily trying to learn one or two of the
poems off by heart.

I asked of the wind, but answer made it none,
Save its accustomed sad and solitary moan--

she kept saying to herself, losing her sense of whatever meaning the
words had ever had, in the repetition which had become mechanical.
Suddenly there was the snap of a shutting gate; wheels cranching on
the dry gravel, horses' feet on the drive; a loud cheerful voice in
the house, coming up through the open windows, the hall, the
passages, the staircase, with unwonted fulness and roundness of
tone. The entrance-hall downstairs was paved with diamonds of black
and white marble; the low wide staircase that went in short flights
around the hall, till you could look down upon the marble floor from
the top story of the house, was uncarpeted--uncovered. The squire
was too proud of his beautifully-joined oaken flooring to cover this
staircase up unnecessarily; not to say a word of the usual state of
want of ready money to expend upon the decorations of his house. So,
through the undraperied hollow square of the hall and staircase
every sound ascended clear and distinct; and Molly heard the
squire's glad 'Hollo! here he is,' and madam's softer, more
plaintive voice; and then the loud, full, strange tone, which she
knew must be Roger's. Then there was an opening and shutting of
doors, and only a distant buzz of talking. Molly began again--

I asked of the wind, but answer made it, none.

And this time she had nearly finished learning the poem, when she
heard Mrs. Hamley come hastily into her sitting-room that adjoined
Molly's bedroom, and burst out into an irrepressible half-hysterical
fit of sobbing. Molly was too young to have any complication of
motives which should prevent her going at once to try and give what
comfort she could. In an instant she was kneeling at Mrs. Hamley's
feet, holding the poor lady's hands, kissing them, murmuring soft
words; which, all unmeaning as they were of aught but sympathy with
the untold grief, did Mrs. Hamley good. She checked herself, smiling
sadly at Molly through the midst of her thick-coming sobs.

'It's only Osborne,' said she, at last. 'Roger has been telling us
about him.'

'What about him?' asked Molly, eagerly.

'I knew on Monday; we had a letter--he said he had not done so well
as we had hoped--as he had hoped himself, poor fellow! He said he
had just passed,--was only low down among the ~junior optimes~, and
not where he had expected, and had led us to expect, But the squire
has never been at college, and does not understand college terms,
and he has been asking Roger all about it, and Roger has been
telling him, and it has made him so angry. But the squire hates
college slang;--he has never been there, you know; and he thought
poor Osborne was taking it too lightly, and he has been asking Roger
about it, and Roger----'

There was a fresh fit of the sobbing crying. Molly burst out,--

'I don't think Mr. Roger should have told; he had no need to begin so
soon about his brother's failure. Why, he hasn't been in the house
an hour!'

'Hush, hush, love!' said Mrs. Hamley. 'Roger is so good. You don't
understand. The squire Would begin and ask questions before Roger
had tasted food--as soon as ever we had got into the dining-room.
And all he said--to me, at any rate--was that Osborne was nervous,
and that if he could only have gone in for the Chancellor's medals,
he would have carried all before him. But Roger said that after
failing like this, he is not very likely to get a fellowship, which
the squire had placed his hopes on. Osborne himself seemed so sure
of it, that the squire can't understand it, and is seriously angry,
and growing more so the more he talks about it. He has kept it in
two or three days, and that never suits him. He is always better
when he is angry about a thing at once, and does not let it smoulder
in his mind. Poor, poor Osborne! I did wish he had been coming
straight home, instead of going to these friends of his; I thought I
could have comforted him. But now I'm glad, for it will be better to
let his father's anger cool first.'

So talking out what was in her heart, Mrs. Hamley became more
composed; and at length she dismissed Molly to dress for dinner,
with a kiss, saying,--

'You're a real blessing to mothers, child! You give one such
pleasant sympathy, both in one's gladness and in one's sorrow; in
one's pride (for I was so proud last week, so confident), and in
one's disappointment. And now your being a fourth at dinner will
keep us off that sore subject; there are times when a stranger in
the household is a wonderful help.'

Molly thought over all that she had heard, as she was dressing and
putting on the terrible, over-smart plaid gown in honour of the new
arrival. Her unconscious fealty to Osborne was not in the least
shaken by his having come to grief at Cambridge. Only she was
indignant--with or without reason--against Roger, who seemed to have
brought the reality of bad news as an offering of first-fruits on
his return home.

She went down into the drawing-room with anything but a welcome to
him in her heart. He was standing by his mother; the squire had not
yet made his appearance. Molly thought that the two were hand in
hand when she first opened the door, but she could not be quite
sure. Mrs. Hamley came a little forwards to meet her, and introduced
her in so fondly intimate a way to her son, that Molly, innocent and
simple, knowing nothing but Hollingford manners, which were anything
but formal, half put out her hand to shake hands with one of whom
she had heard so much--the son of such kind friends. She could only
hope he had not seen the movement, for he made no attempt to respond
to it; only bowed.

He was a tall powerfully-made young man, giving the impression of
strength more than elegance. His face was rather square,
ruddy-coloured (as his father had said), hair and eyes brown--the
latter rather deep-set beneath his thick eyebrows; and he had a
trick of wrinkling up his eyelids when he wanted particularly to
observe anything, which made his eyes look even smaller still at
such times. He had a large mouth, with excessively mobile lips; and
another trick of his was, that when he was amused at anything, he
resisted the impulse to laugh, by a droll manner of twitching and
puckering up his mouth, till at length the sense of humour had its
way, and his features relaxed, and he broke into a broad sunny
smile; his beautiful teeth--his only beautiful feature--breaking out
with a white gleam upon the red-brown countenance. These two tricks
of his--of crumpling up the eyelids, so as to concentrate the power
of sight, which made him look stern and thoughtful; and the odd
twitching of the lips, which was preliminary to a smile, which made
him. look intensely merry--gave the varying expressions of his face
a greater range 'from grave to gay, from lively to severe,' than is
common to most men. To Molly, who was not finely discriminative in
her glances at the stranger this first night, he simply appeared
'heavy-looking, clumsy,' and 'a person she was sure she should never
get on with.' He certainly did not seem to care much what impression
he made upon his mother's visitor. He was at that age when young men
admire a formed beauty more than a face with any amount of future
capability of loveliness, and when they are morbidly conscious of
the difficulty of finding subjects of conversation in talking to
girls in a state of feminine hobbledehoyhood. Besides, his thoughts
were full of other subjects, which he did not intend to allow to
ooze out in words, yet he wanted to prevent any of that heavy
silence which he feared might be impending--with an angry and
displeased father, and a timorous and distressed mother. He only
looked upon Molly as a badly-dressed, and rather awkward girl, with
black hair and an intelligent face, who might help him in the task
he had set himself of keeping up a bright general conversation
during the rest of the evening; might help him--if she would, but
she would not. She thought him unfeeling in his talkativeness; his
constant flow of words upon indifferent subjects was a wonder and a
repulsion to her. How could he go on so cheerfully while his mother
sate there, scarcely eating anything, and doing her best, with ill
success, to swallow down the tears that would keep rising to her
eyes; when his father's heavy brow was deeply clouded, and he
evidently cared nothing--at first at least--for all the chatter his
son poured forth? Had Mr. Roger Hamley no sympathy in him? She would
show that she had, at any rate. So she quite declined the part,
which he had hoped she would have taken, of respondent, and possible
questioner; and his work became more and more like that of a man
walking in a quagmire. Once the squire roused himself to speak to
the butler; he felt the need of outward stimulus--of a better
vintage than usual.

'Bring up a bottle of the Burgundy with the yellow seal.'

He spoke low; he had no spirit to speak in his usual voice. The
butler answered in the same tone. Molly sitting near them, and
silent herself, heard what they said.

'If you please, sir, there are not above six bottles of that seal
left; and it is Mr. Osborne's favourite wine.'

The squire turned round with a growl in his voice.

'Bring up a bottle of the Burgundy with the yellow seal, as I said.'

The butler went away, wondering. 'Mr. Osborne's' likes and dislikes
had been the law of the house in general until now. If he had liked
any particular food or drink, any seat or place, any special degree
of warmth or coolness, his wishes were to be attended to; for he was
the heir, and he was delicate, and he was the clever one of the
family. All the out-of-doors men would have said the same; Mr
Osborne wished a tree cut down, or kept standing, or had
such-and-such a fancy about the game; or had desired something
unusual about the horses; and they had all to attend to it as if it
were law. But to-day the Burgundy with the yellow seal was to be
brought; and it was brought. Molly testified with quiet vehemence of
action; she never took wine, so she need not have been afraid of the
man's pouring it into her glass; but as an open mark of fealty to
the absent Osborne, however little it might be understood, she
placed the palm of her small brown hand over the top of the glass,
and held it there, till the wine had gone round, and Roger and his
father were in full enjoyment of the same.

After dinner, too, the gentlemen lingered long over their dessert,
and Molly heard them laughing; and then she saw them loitering about
in the twilight out-of-doors; Roger hatless, his hands in his
pockets, lounging by his father's side, who was now able to talk in
his usual loud and cheerful way, forgetting Osborne. ~Voe, victis!~

And so in mute opposition on Molly's side, in polite indifference,
scarcely verging on kindliness on his, Roger and she steered clear
of each other. He had many occupations in which he needed no
companionship, even if she had been qualified to give it. The worst
was, that she found he was in the habit of occupying the library,
her favourite retreat, in the mornings before Mrs. Hamley came down.
She opened the half-closed door a day or two after his return home,
and found him busy among books and papers, with which the large
leather-covered table was strewn; and she softly withdrew before he
could turn his head and see her, so as to distinguish her from one
of the housemaids. He rode out every day, sometimes with his father
about the outlying fields, sometimes far away for a good gallop.
Molly would have enjoyed accompanying him on these occasions, for
she was very fond of riding; and there had been some talk of sending
for her habit and grey pony when first she came to Hamley; only the
squire, after some consideration, had said he so rarely did more
than go slowly from one field to another, where his labourers were
at work, that he feared she would find such slow work--ten minutes
riding through heavy land, twenty minutes sitting still on
horseback, listening to the directions he should have to give to his
men--rather dull. Now, when if she had had her pony here she might
have ridden out with Roger, without giving him any trouble--she
would have taken care of that--nobody seemed to think of renewing
the proposal. Altogether it was pleasanter before he came home.

Her father came over pretty frequently; sometimes there were long
unaccountable absences, it was true; when his daughter began to
fidget after him, and to wonder what had become of him. But when he
made his appearance he had always good reasons to give; and the
right she felt that she had to his familiar household tenderness;
the power she possessed of fully understanding the exact value of
both his words and his silence, made these glimpses of intercourse
with him inexpressibly charming. Latterly her burden had always
been, 'When may I come home, papa?' It was not that she was unhappy,
or uncomfortable; she was passionately fond of Mrs. Hamley, she was a
favourite of the squire's, and could not as Yet fully understand why
some people were so much afraid of him; and as for Roger, if he did
not add to her pleasure, he scarcely took away from it. But she
wanted to be at home once more. The reason why she could not tell;
but this she knew full well. Mr. Gibson reasoned with her till she
was weary of being completely convinced that it was right and
necessary for her to stay where she was. And then with an effort she
stopped the cry upon her tongue, for she saw that its repetition
harassed her father.

During this absence of hers Mr. Gibson was drifting into matrimony.
He was partly aware of whither he was going; and partly it was like
the soft floating movement of a dream. He was more passive than
active in the affair; though, if his reason had not fully approved
of the step he was tending to--if he had not believed that a second
marriage was the very best way of cutting the Gordian knot of
domestic difficulties, he could have made an effort without any
great trouble to himself, and extricated himself without pain from
the mesh of circumstances. It happened in this manner:--

Lady Cumnor having married her two eldest daughters, found her
labours as a chaperone to Lady Harriet, the youngest, considerably
lightened by co-operation; and, at length, she had leisure to be an
invalid. She was, however, too energetic to allow herself this
indulgence constantly; only she permitted herself to break down
occasionally after a long course of dinners, late hours, and London
atmosphere: and then, leaving Lady Harriet with either Lady Cuxhaven
or Lady Agnes Manners, she betook herself to the comparative quiet
of the Towers, where she found occupation in doing her benevolence,
which was sadly neglected in the hurly-burly of London. This
particular summer she had broken down earlier than usual, and longed
for the repose of the country. She believed that her state of
health, too, was more serious than previously; but she did not say a
word of this to her husband or daughters; reserving her confidence
for Mr. Gibson's cars. She did not wish to take Lady Harriet away
from the gaieties of town which she was thoroughly enjoying, by any
complaint of hers, which might, after all, be ill-founded; and yet
she did not quite like being without a companion in the three weeks
or a month that might intervene before her family would join her at
the Towers, especially as the annual festivity to the school
visitors was impending; and both the school and the visit of the
ladies connected with it, had rather lost the zest of novelty.

'Thursday, the 19th, Harriet,' said Lady Cumnor meditatively; 'what
do you say to coming down to the Towers on the 18th, and helping me
over that long day; you could stay in the country till Monday, and
have a few days' rest and good air; you would return a great deal
fresher to the remainder of your gaieties. Your father would bring
you down, I know: indeed, he is coming naturally.'

'Oh, mammal' said Lady Harriet, the youngest daughter of the
house--the prettiest, the most indulged; 'I cannot go; there is the
water-party up to Maidenhead on the 20th, I should be so sorry to
miss it: and Mrs. Duncan's ball, and Grisi's concert; please, don't
want me. Besides, I should do no good. I can't make provincial
small-talk; I'm not up in the local politics of Hollingford. I
should be making mischief, I know I should.'

'Very well, my dear,' said Lady Cumnor, sighing, 'I had forgotten
the Maidenhead water-party, or I would not have asked you.'

'What a pity it isn't the Eton holidays, so that you could have had
Hollingford's boys to help you to do the honours, mamma. They are
such affable little prigs. It was the greatest fun to watch them
last year at Sir Edward's, doing the honours of their grandfather's
house to much such a collection of humble admirers as you get
together at the Towers. I shall never forget seeing Edgar gravely
squiring about an old lady in a portentous black bonnet, and giving
her information in the correctest grammar possible.'

'Well, I like those lads,' said Lady Cuxhaven; 'they are on the way
to become true gentlemen. But, mamma, why shouldn't you have Clare
to stay with you? You like her, and she is just the person to save
you the troubles of hospitality to the Hollingford people, and we
should all be so much more comfortable if we knew you had her with
you.'

'Yes, Clare would do very well,' said Lady Cumnor; 'but is not it
her school-time or something? We must not interfere with her school
so as to injure her, for I am afraid she is not doing too well as it
is; and she has been so very unlucky ever since she left us--first
her husband died, and then she lost Lady Davies' situation, and then
Mrs. Maude's, and now Mr. Preston told your father it was all she
could do to pay her way in Ashcombe, though Lord Cumnor lets her
have the house rent-free.'

'I can't think how it is,' said Lady Harriet. 'She's not very wise,
certainly; but she is so useful and agreeable, and has such pleasant
manners. I should have thought any one who wasn't particular about
education would have been charmed to keep her as a governess.'

'What do you mean by not being particular about education? Most
people who keep governesses for their children are supposed to be
particular,' said Lady Cuxhaven.

'Well, they think themselves so, I've no doubt; but I call you
particular, Mary, and I don't think mamma was; but she thought
herself so, I am sure.'

'I can't think what you mean, Harriet,' said Lady Cumnor, a good
deal annoyed at this speech of her clever, heedless, youngest
daughter.

'Oh dear, mamma, you did everything you could think of for us; but
you see you'd ever so many other engrossing interests, and Mary
hardly ever allows her love for her husband to interfere with her
all-absorbing care for the children. You gave us the best of masters
in every department, and Clare to dragonize and keep us up to our
preparation for these masters, as well as ever she could; but then
you know, or rather you didn't know, some of the masters admired our
very pretty governess, and there was a kind of respectable veiled
flirtation going on, which never came to anything, to be sure; and
then you were often so overwhelmed with your business as a great
lady--fashionable and benevolent, and all that sort of thing--that
you used to call Clare away from us at the most critical times of
our lessons, to write your notes, or add up your accounts, and the
consequence is, that I'm about the most ill-informed girl in London.
Only Mary was so capitally trained by good awkward Miss Benson, that
she is always full to overflowing with accurate knowledge, and her
glory is reflected upon me.'

'Do you think what Harriet says is true, Mary?' asked Lady Cumnor,
rather anxiously.

'I was so little with Clare in the schoolroom. I used to read French
with her; she had a beautiful accent, I remember. Both Agnes and
Harriet were very fond of her. I used to be jealous for Miss
Benson's sake, and perhaps--' Lady Cuxhaven paused a minute--'that
made me fancy that she had a way of flattering and indulging
them--not quite conscientious, I used to think. But girls are severe
judges, and certainly she has had an anxious enough life since. I am
always so glad when we can have her, and give her a little pleasure.
The only thing that makes me uneasy now is the way in which she
seems to send her daughter away from her so much; we never can
persuade her to bring Cynthia with her when she comes to see us.'

'Now that I call ill-natured,' said Lady Harriet; 'here is a poor
dear woman trying to earn her livelihood, first as a governess, and
what could she do with her daughter then, but send her to school?
and after that, when Clare is asked to go visiting, and is too
modest to bring her girl with her--besides all the expense of the
journey, and the rigging out--Mary finds fault with her for her
modesty and economy.'

'Well, after all, we are not discussing Clare and her affairs, but
trying to plan for mamma's comfort. I don't see that she can do
better than ask Mrs. Kirkpatrick to come to the Towers--as soon as
her holidays begin, I mean.'

'Here is her last letter,' said Lady Cumnor, who had been searching
for it in her escritoire, while her daughters were talking. Holding
her glasses before her eyes, she began to read, '"My wonted
misfortunes appear to have followed me to Ashcombe"--um, um, um;
that's not it--"Mr. Preston is most kind in sending me fruit and
flowers from the Manor-house, according to dear Lord Cumnor's kind
injunctions." Oh, here it is! "The vacation begins on the 11th,
according to the usual custom of schools in Ashcombe; and I must
then try and obtain some change of air and scene, in order to fit
myself for the resumption of my duties on the 10th of August." You
see, girls, she would be at liberty, if she has not made any other
arrangement for spending her holidays. To-day is the 15th.'

'I'll write to her at once, mamma,' Lady Harriet said. 'Clare and I
are always great friends; I was her confidant in her loves with poor
Mr. Kirkpatrick, and we've kept up our intimacy ever since. I know of
three offers she had besides.'

'I sincerely hope Miss Bowes is not telling her love-affairs to
Grace or Lily. Why, Harriet, you could not have been older than
Grace when Clare was married!' said Lady Cuxhaven in maternal alarm.

'No; but I was well versed in the tender passion, thanks to novels.
Now I dare say you don't admit novels into your school-room, Mary;
so your daughters wouldn't be able to administer discreet sympathy
to their governess in case she was the heroine of a love-affair.'

'My dear Harriet, don't let me hear you talking of love in that way;
it is not pretty. Love is a serious thing.'

'My dear mamma, your exhortations are just eighteen years too late.
I've talked all the freshness off love, and that's the reason I'm
tired of the subject.'

This last speech referred to a recent refusal of lady Harriet's,
which had displeased Lady Cumnor, and rather annoyed my lord; as
they, the parents, could see no objection to the gentleman in
question. Lady Cuxhaven did not want to have the subject brought up,
so she hastened to say,--

'Do ask the poor little daughter to come with her mother to the
Towers; why, she must be seventeen or more; she would really be a
companion to you, mamma, if her mother was unable to come,' said
Lady Cuxhaven.

'I was not ten when Clare married, and I'm nearly nine-and-twenty,'
added Lady Harriet.

'Don't speak of it, Harriet; at any rate you are but
eight-and-twenty now, and you look a great deal younger. There is no
need to be always bringing up your age on every possible occasion.'

'There was need of it now, though. I wanted to make out how old
Cynthia Kirkpatrick was. I think she can't be far from eighteen.'

'She is at school at Boulogne, I know; and so I don't think she can
be as old as that. Clare says something about her in this letter:
"Under these circumstances" (the ill-success of her school), "I
cannot think myself justified in allowing myself the pleasure of
having darling Cynthia at home for the holidays; especially as the
period when the vacation in French schools commences differs from
that common in England; and it might occasion some confusion in my
arrangements if darling Cynthia were to come to Ashcombe, and occupy
my time and thoughts so immediately before the commencement of my
scholastic duties as the 8th of August, on which day her vacation
begins, which is but two days before my holidays end." So, you see,
Clare would be quite at liberty to come to me, and I dare say it
would be a very nice change for her.'

'And Hollingford is busy seeing after his new laboratory at the
Towers, and is constantly backwards and forwards. And Agnes wants to
go there for change of air, as soon as she is strong enough after
her confinement. And even my own dear insatiable "me" will have had
enough of gaiety in two or three weeks, if this hot weather lasts.'

'I think I may be able to come down for a few days too, if you will
let me, mamma; and I'll bring Grace, who is looking rather pale and
weedy; growing too fast, I am afraid. So I hope you won't be dull.'

'My dear,' said Lady Cumnor, drawing herself up, 'I should be
ashamed of feeling dull with my resources; my duties to others and
to myself!'

So the plan in its present shape was told to Lord Cumnor, who highly
approved of it; as he always did of every project of his wife's.
Lady Cumnor's character was perhaps a little too ponderous for him
in reality, but he was always full of admiration for all her words
and deeds, and used to boast of her wisdom, her benevolence, her
power and dignity, in her absence, as if by this means he could
buttress up his own more feeble nature.

'Very good--very good, indeed! Clare to join you at the Towers!
Capital! I could not have planned it better myself! I shall go down
with you on Wednesday in time for the jollification on Thursday. I
always enjoy that day; they are such nice, friendly people, those
good Hollingford ladies. Then I'll have a day with Sheepshanks, and
perhaps I may ride over to Ashcombe and see Preston--Brown Jess can
do it in a day, eighteen miles--to be sure! But there's back again
to the Towers! how much is twice eighteen--thirty?'

'Thirty-six,' said Lady Cumnor, sharply.

'So it is; you're always right, my dear. Preston's a clever, sharp
fellow.'

'I don't like him,' said my lady.

'He takes looking after; but he's a sharp fellow. He's such a
good-looking man, too, I wonder you don't like him.'

'I never think whether a land-agent is handsome or not. They don't
belong to the class of people whose appearance I notice.'

'To be sure not. But he is a handsome fellow; and what should make
you like him is the interest he takes in Clare and her prospects. He
is constantly suggesting something that can be done to her house,
and I know he sends her fruit, and flowers, and game just as
regularly as we should ourselves if we lived at Ashcombe.'

'How old is he?' said Lady Cumnor, with a faint suspicion of motives
in her mind.

'About twenty-seven, I think. Ah! I see what is in your ladyship's
head. No! no! he's too young for that. You must look out for some
middle-aged man, if you want to get poor Clare married; Preston
won't do.'

'I'm not a match-maker, as you might know. I never did it for my own
daughters. I'm not likely to do it for Clare,' said she, leaning
back languidly.

'Well! you might do a worse thing. I'm beginning to think she'll
never get on as a schoolmistress, though why she should not, I'm
sure I don't know; for she's an uncommonly pretty woman for her age,
and her having lived in our family, and your having had her so often
with you, ought to go a good way. I say, my lady, what do you think
of Gibson? He would be just the right age--widower--lives near the
Towers.'

'I told you just now I was no match-maker, my lord. I suppose we had
better go by the old road--the people at those inns know us?'

And so they passed on to speaking about other things than Mrs
Kirkpatrick and her prospects, scholastic or matrimonial.

CHAPTER IX

THE WIDOWER AND THE WIDOW

Mrs. Kirkpatrick was only too happy to accept Lady Cumnor's
invitation. It was what she had been hoping for, but hardly daring
to expect, as she believed that the family were settled in London
for some time to come. The Towers was a pleasant and luxurious house
in which to pass her holidays; and though she was not one to make
deep plans, or to look far ahead, she was quite aware of the
prestige which her being able to say she had been staying with 'dear
Lady Cumnor' at the Towers, was likely to give her and her school in
the eyes of a good many people; so she gladly prepared to join her
ladyship on the 17th. Her wardrobe did not require much arrangement;
if it had done, the poor lady would not have had much money to
appropriate to the purpose. She was very pretty and graceful; and
that goes a great way towards carrying off shabby clothes; and it
was her taste, more than any depth of feeling, that had made her
persevere in wearing all the delicate tints--the violets and
greys--which, with a certain admixture of black, constitute
half-mourning. This style of becoming dress she was supposed to wear
in memory of Mr. Kirkpatrick; in reality because it was both
lady-like and economical. Her beautiful hair was of that rich auburn
that hardly ever turns grey; and partly out of consciousness of its
beauty, and partly because the washing of caps is expensive, she did
not wear anything on her head; her complexion had the vivid tints
that often accompany the kind of hair which has once been red; and
the only injury her skin had received from advancing years was that
the colouring was rather more brilliant than delicate, and varied
less with every passing emotion. She could no longer blush; and at
eighteen she had been very proud of her blushes. Her eyes were soft,
large, and china-blue in colour. they had not much expression or
shadow about them, which was perhaps owing to the flaxen colour of
her eyelashes. Her figure was a little fuller than it used to be,
but her movements were as soft and sinuous as ever. Altogether, she
looked much younger than her age, which was not far short of forty.
She had a very pleasant voice, and read aloud well and distinctly,
which Lady Cumnor liked. Indeed, for some inexplicable reason, she
was a greater; more positive favourite with Lady Cumnor than with
any of the rest of the family, though they all liked her up to a
certain point, and found it agreeably useful to have any one in the
house who was so well acquainted with their ways and habits; so
ready to talk, when a little trickle of conversation was required;
so willing to listen, and to listen with tolerable intelligence, if
the subjects spoken about did not refer to serious solid literature,
or science, or politics, or social economy. About novels and poetry,
travels and gossip, personal details, or anecdotes of any kind, she
always made exactly the remarks which are expected from an agreeable
listener; and she had sense enough to confine herself to those short
expressions of wonder, admiration, and astonishment, which may mean
anything, when more recondite things were talked about.

It was a very pleasant change to a poor unsuccessful schoolmistress
to leave her own house, full of battered and shabby furniture (she
had taken the goodwill and furniture of her predecessor at a
valuation, two or three years before), where the look-out was as
gloomy, and the surrounding as squalid, as is often the case in the
smaller streets of a country town, and to come bowling through the
Towers Park in the luxurious carriage sent to meet her; to alight,
and feel secure that the well-trained servants would see after her
bags and umbrella, and parasol, and cloak, without her loading
herself with all these portable articles, as she had had to do while
following the wheel-barrow containing her luggage in going to the
Ashcombe coach-office that morning; to pass up the deep-piled
carpets of the broad shallow stairs into my lady's own room, cool
and deliciously fresh, even on this sultry day, and fragrant with
great bowls of freshly gathered roses of every shade of colour.
There were two or three new novels lying uncut on the table; the
daily papers, the magazines. Every chair was an easy-chair of some
kind or other; and all covered with French chintz that mimicked the
real flowers in the garden below. She was familiar with the bedroom
called hers, to which she was soon ushered by Lady Cumnor's maid. It
seemed to her far more like home than the dingy place she had left
that morning; it was so natural to her to like dainty draperies and
harmonious colouring, and fine linen and soft raiment. She sate down
on the arm-chair by the bed-side, and wondered over her fate
something in this fashion,--

'One would think it was an easy enough thing to deck a looking-glass
like that with muslin and pink ribbons; and yet how hard it is to
keep it up! People don't know how hard it is till they've tried as I
have. I made my own glass just as pretty when I first went to
Ashcombe; but the muslin got dirty, and the pink ribbons faded, and
it is so difficult to earn money to renew them; and when one has got
the money one hasn't the heart to spend it all at once. One thinks
and one thinks how one can get the most good out of it; and a new
gown, or a day's pleasure, or some hot-house fruit, or some piece of
elegance that can be seen and noticed in one's drawing-room, carries
the day, and good-by to prettily decked looking-glasses. Now here,
money is like the air they breathe. No one ever asks or knows how
much the washing costs, or what pink ribbon is a yard. Ah! it would
be different if they had to earn every penny as I have! They would
have to calculate, like me, how to get the most pleasure out of it.
I wonder if I am to go on all my life toiling and moiling for money?
It's not natural. Marriage is the natural thing; then the husband
has all that kind of dirty work to do, and his wife sits in the
drawing-room like a lady. I did, when poor Kirkpatrick was alive.
Heigho! it's a sad thing to be a widow.'

Then there was the contrast between the dinners which she had to
share with her scholars at Ashcombe--rounds of beef, legs of mutton,
great dishes of potatoes, and large barter-puddings, with the tiny
meal of exquisitely cooked delicacies, sent up on old Chelsea china,
that was served every day to the earl and countess and herself at
the Towers. She dreaded the end of her holidays as much as the most
home-loving of her pupils. But at this time that end was some weeks
off, so Clare shut her eyes to the future, and tried to relish the
present to its fullest extent. A disturbance to the pleasant, even
course of the summer days came in the indisposition of Lady Cumnor.
Her husband had gone back to London, and she and Mrs. Kirkpatrick had
been left to the very even tenor of life, which was according to my
lady's wish just now. In spite of her languor and fatigue, she had
gone through the day when the school visitors came to the Towers, in
full dignity, dictating clearly all that was to be done, what walks
were to be taken, what hothouses to be seen, and when the party were
to return to the 'collation.' She herself remained indoors, with one
or two ladies who had ventured to think that the fatigue or the heat
might be too much for them, and who had therefore declined
accompanying the ladies in charge of Mrs. Kirkpatrick, or those other
favoured few to whom Lord Cumnor was explaining the new buildings in
his farm-yard. 'With the utmost condescension,' as her hearers
afterwards expressed it, Lady Cumnor told them all about her married
daughters' establishments, nurseries, plans for the education of
their children, and manner of passing the day. But the exertion
tired her; and when every one had left, the probability is that she
would have gone to lie down and rest, had not her husband made an
unlucky remark in the kindness of his heart. He came up to her and
put his hand on her shoulder.

'I'm afraid you're sadly tired, my lady?' he said.

She braced her muscles, and drew herself up, saying coldly,--

'When I am tired, Lord Cumnor, I will tell you so.' And her own
fatigue showed itself during the rest of the evening in her sitting
particularly upright, and declining all offers of easy-chairs or
footstools, and refusing the insult of a suggestion that they should
all go to bed earlier. She went on in something of this kind of
manner as long as Lord Cumnor remained at the Towers. Mrs
Kirkpatrick was quite deceived by it, and kept assuring Lord Cumnor
that she had never seen dear Lady Cumnor looking better, or so
strong and well. But he had an affectionate heart, if a blundering
head; and though he could give no reason for his belief, he was
almost certain his wife was not well. Yet he was too much afraid of
her to send for Mr. Gibson without her permission. His last words to
Clare were,--

'It's such a comfort to leave my lady to you; only don't you be
deluded by her ways. She'll not show she's ill till she can't help
it. Consult with Bradley,' (Lady Cumnor's 'own woman,'--she disliked
the new-fangledness of 'lady's-maid,') 'and if I were you, I'd send
and ask Gibson to call--you might make any kind of a pretence,'--and
then the idea he had had in London of the fitness of a match between
the two coming into his head just now, he could not help
adding,--'Get him to come and see you, he's a very agreeable man;
Lord Hollingford says there's no one like him in these parts: and he
might be looking at my lady while he was talking to you, and see if
he thinks her really ill. And let me know what he says about her.'

But Clare was just as great a coward about doing anything for Lady
Cumnor which she had not expressly ordered, as Lord Cumnor himself.
She knew she might fall into such disgrace if she sent for Mr. Gibson
without direct permission, that she might never be asked to stay at
the Towers again; and the life there, monotonous in its smoothness
of luxury as it might be to some, was exactly to her taste. She in
her turn tried to put upon Bradley the duty which Lord Cumnor had
put upon her.

'Mrs. Bradley,' she said one day, 'are you quite comfortable about my
lady's health? Lord Cumnor fancied that she was looking worn and
ill?'

'Indeed, Mrs. Kirkpatrick, I don't think my lady is herself. I can't
persuade myself as she is, though if you was to question me till
night I couldn't tell you why.'

'Don't you think you could make some errand to Hollingford, and see
Mr. Gibson, and ask him to come round this way some day, and make a
call on Lady Cumnor?'

'It would be as much as my place is worth, Mrs. Kirkpatrick. Till my
lady's dying day, if Providence keeps her in her senses, she'll have
everything done her own way, or not at all. There's only Lady
Harriet that can manage her at all, and she not always.'

'Well, then--we must hope that there is nothing the matter with her;
and I dare say there is not. She says there is not, and she ought to
know best herself.'

But a day or two after this conversation took place, Lady Cumnor
startled Mrs. Kirkpatrick, by saying suddenly,--

'Clare, I wish you'd write a note to Mr. Gibson, saying, I should
like to see him this afternoon. I thought he would have called of
himself before now. He ought to have done so, to pay his respects.'

Mr. Gibson had been far too busy in his profession to have time for
mere visits of ceremony, though he knew quite well he was neglecting
what was expected of him. But the district of which he may be said
to have had medical charge was full of a bad kind of low fever,
which took up all his time and thought, and often made him very
thankful that Molly was out of the way in the quiet shades of
Hamley.

His domestic 'raws' had not healed over in the least, though he was
obliged to put the perplexities on one side for the time. The last
drop--the final straw, had been an impromptu visit of Lord
Hollingford's, whom he had met in the town one forenoon. They had
had a good deal to say to each other about some new scientific
discovery, with the details of which Lord Hollingford was well
acquainted, while Mr. Gibson was ignorant and deeply interested. At
length Lord Hollingford said suddenly,--

'Gibson, I wonder if you'd give me some lunch; I've been a good deal
about since my seven-o'clock breakfast, and am getting quite
ravenous.'

Now Mr. Gibson was only too much pleased to show hospitality to one
whom he liked and respected so much as Lord Hollingford, and he
gladly took him home with him to the early family dinner. But it was
just at the time when the cook was sulking at Bethia's
dismissal--and she chose to be unpunctual and careless. There was no
successor to Bethia as yet appointed to wait at the meals. So,
though Mr. Gibson knew well that bread-and-cheese, cold beef, or the
simplest food available, would have been welcome to the hungry lord,
he could not get either these things for luncheon, or even the
family dinner, at anything like the proper time, in spite of all his
ringing, and as much anger as he liked to show, for fear of making
Lord Hollingford uncomfortable. At last dinner was ready, but the
poor host saw the want of nicety--almost the want of cleanliness, in
all its accompaniments--dingy plate, dull-looking glass, a
tablecloth that, if not absolutely dirty, was anything but fresh in
its splashed and rumpled condition, and compared it in his own mind
with the dainty delicacy with which even a loaf of brown bread was
served up at his guest's home. He did not apologize directly, but,
after dinner, just as they were parting, he said,--

'You see a man like me--a widower--with a daughter who cannot always
be at home--has not the regulated household which would enable me to
command the small portions of time I can spend there.'

He made no allusion to the comfortless meal of which they had both
partaken, though it was full in his mind. Nor was it absent from
Lord Hollingford's, as he made reply,--

'True, true. Yet a man like you ought to be free from any thought of
household cares. You ought to have somebody. How old is Miss
Gibson?'

'Seventeen. It's a very awkward age for a motherless girl.'

'Yes; very. I have only boys, but it must be very awkward with a
girl. Excuse me, Gibson, but we're talking like friends. Have you
never thought of marrying again? It would not be like a first
marriage, of course; but if you found a sensible agreeable woman of
thirty or so, I really think you couldn't do better than take her to
manage your home, and so save you either discomfort or worry; and,
besides, she would be able to give your daughter that kind of tender
supervision which, I fancy, all girls of that age require. It's a
delicate subject, but you'll excuse my having spoken frankly.'

Mr. Gibson had thought of this advice several times since it was
given; but it was a case of 'first catch your hare.' Where was the
'sensible and agreeable woman of thirty or so?' Not Miss Browning,
nor Miss Phoebe, nor Miss Goodenough. Among his country patients
there were two classes pretty distinctly marked: farmers, whose
children were unrefined and uneducated; squires, whose daughters
would, indeed think the world was coming to a pretty pass, if they
were to marry a country surgeon.

But the first day on which Mr. Gibson paid his visit to Lady Cumnor,
he began to think it possible that Mrs. Kirkpatrick was his 'hare.'
He rode away with slack rein, thinking over what he knew of her,
more than about the prescriptions he should write, or the way he was
going. He remembered her as a very pretty Miss Clare: the governess
who had the scarlet fever; that was in his wife's days, a long time
ago; he could hardly understand Mrs. Kirkpatrick's youthfulness of
appearance when he thought how long. Then he heard of her marriage
to a curate; and the next day (or so it seemed, he could not
recollect the exact duration of the interval), of his death. He
knew, in some way, that ever since she had been living as a
governess in different families; but that she had always been a
great favourite with the family at the Towers, for whom, quite
independent of their rank, he had a true respect. A year or two ago
he had heard that she had taken the good-will of a school at
Ashcombe; a small town close to another property of Lord Cumnor's,
in the same county. Ashcombe was a larger estate than that near
Hollingford, but the old Manor-house there was not nearly so good a
residence as the Towers; so it was given up to Mr. Preston, the
land-agent, for the Ashcombe property, just as Mr. Sheepshanks was
for that at Hollingford. There were a few rooms at the Manor-house
reserved for the occasional visits of the family, otherwise Mr
Preston, a handsome young bachelor, had it all to himself. Mr. Gibson
knew that Mrs. Kirkpatrick had one child, a daughter, who must be
much about the same age as Molly. Of course she had very little, if
any, property. But he himself had lived carefully, and had a few
thousands well invested; besides which, his professional income was
good, and increasing rather than diminishing every year. By the time
he had arrived at this point in his consideration of the case, he
was at the house of the next patient on his round, and he put away
all thought of matrimony and Mrs. Kirkpatrick for the time. Once
again, in the course of the day, he remembered with a certain
pleasure that Molly had told him some little details connected with
her unlucky detention at the Towers five or six years ago, which had
made him feel at the time as if Mrs. Kirkpatrick had behaved very
kindly to his little girl. So there the matter rested for the
present, as far as he was concerned.

Lady Cumnor was out of health; but not so ill as she had been
fancying herself during all those days when the people about her
dared not send for the doctor. It was a great relief to her to have
Mr. Gibson to decide for her what she was to do; what to eat, drink,
avoid. Such decisions ~ab extra~, are sometimes a wonderful relief
to those whose habit it has been to decide, not only for themselves,
but for every one else; and occasionally the relaxation of the
strain which a character for infallible wisdom brings with it, does
much to restore health. Mrs. Kirkpatrick thought in her secret soul
that she had never found it so easy to get on with Lady Cumnor; and
Bradley and she had never done singing the praises of Mr. Gibson,
'who always managed my lady so beautifully.'

Reports were duly sent up to my lord, but he and her daughters were
strictly forbidden to come down. Lady Cumnor wished to be weak and
languid, and uncertain both in body and mind, without family
observation. It was a condition so different to anything she had
ever been in before, that she was unconsciously afraid of losing her
prestige, if she was seen in it. Sometimes she herself wrote the
daily bulletins; at other times she bade Clare to do it, but she
would always see the letters. Any answers she received from her
daughters she used to read herself, occasionally imparting some of
their contents to 'that good Clare.' But anybody might read my
lord's letters. There was no great fear of family secrets oozing out
in his sprawling lines of affection. But once Mrs. Kirkpatrick came
upon a sentence in a letter from Lord Cumnor, which she was reading
out loud to his wife, that caught her eye before she came to it, and
if she could have skipped it and kept it for private perusal, she
would gladly have done so. My lady was too sharp for her, though. In
her opinion 'Clare was a good creature, but not clever,' the truth
being that she was not always quick at resources, though tolerably
unscrupulous in the use of them.

'Read on. What are you stopping for? There is no bad news, is there,
about Agnes?--Give me the letter.'

Lady Cumnor read, half aloud,--

'"How are Clare and Gibson getting on? You despised my advice to
help on that affair, but I really think a little match-making would
be a very pleasant amusement now that you are shut up in the house;
and I cannot conceive any marriage more suitable."'

'Oh!' said Lady Cumnor, laughing, 'it was awkward for you to come
upon that, Clare: I don't wonder you stopped short. You gave me a
terrible fright, though.'

'Lord Cumnor is so fond of joking,' said Mrs. Kirkpatrick, a little
flurried, yet quite recognizing the truth of his last words,--'I
cannot conceive any marriage more suitable.' She wondered what Lady
Cumnor thought of it. Lord Cumnor wrote as if there was really a
chance. It was not an unpleasant idea; it brought a faint smile out
upon her face, as she sate by Lady Cumnor, while the latter took her
afternoon nap.

CHAPTER X

A CRISIS

Mrs. Kirkpatrick had been reading aloud till Lady Cumnor fell asleep,
the book rested on her knee, just kept from falling by her hold. She
was looking out of the window, not seeing the trees in the park, nor
the glimpses of the hills beyond, but thinking how pleasant it would
be to have a husband once more;--some one who would work while she
sate at her elegant ease in a prettily-furnished drawing-room; and
she was rapidly investing this imaginary bread-winner with the form
and features of the country surgeon, when there was a slight tap at
the door, and almost before she could rise, the object of her
thoughts came in. She felt herself blush, and she was not displeased
at the consciousness. She advanced to meet him, making a sign
towards her sleeping ladyship.

'Very good,' said he, in a low voice, casting a professional eye on
the slumbering figure; 'can I speak to you for a minute or two in
the library?'

'Is he going to offer?' thought she, with a sudden palpitation, and
a conviction of her willingness to accept a man whom an hour before
she had simply looked upon as one of the category of unmarried men
to whom matrimony was possible.

He was only going to make one or two medical inquiries; she found
that out very speedily, and considered the conversation as rather
flat to her, though it might be instructive to him. She was not
aware that he finally made up his mind to propose, during the time
that she was speaking--answering his questions in many words, but he
was accustomed to winnow the chaff from the corn; and her voice was
so soft, her accent so pleasant, that it struck him as particularly
agreeable after the broad country accent he was perpetually hearing.
Then the harmonious colours of her dress, and her slow and graceful
movements, had something of the same soothing effect upon his nerves
that a cat's purring has upon some people's. He began to think that
he should be fortunate if he could win her, for his own sake.
Yesterday he had looked upon her more as a possible stepmother for
Molly; to-day he thought more of her as a wife for himself. The
remembrance of Lord Cumnor's letter gave her a very becoming
consciousness; she wished to attract, and hoped that she was
succeeding. Still they only talked of the countess's state for some
time; then a lucky shower came on. Mr. Gibson did not care a jot for
rain, but just now it gave him an excuse for lingering.

'It is very stormy weather,' said he.

'Yes, very. My daughter writes me word, that for two days last week
the packet could not sail from Boulogne.'

'Miss Kirkpatrick is at Boulogne, is she?'

'Yes, poor girl; she is at school there, trying to perfect herself
in the French language. But, Mr. Gibson, you must not call her Miss
Kirkpatrick. Cynthia remembers you with so much--affection, I may
say. She was your little patient when she had the measles here four
years ago, you know. Pray call her Cynthia; she would be quite hurt
at such a formal name as Miss Kirkpatrick from you.'

'Cynthia seems to me such an out-of-the-way name, only fit for
poetry, not for daily use.'

'It is mine,' said Mrs. Kirkpatrick, in a plaintive tone of reproach.
'I was christened Hyacinth, and her poor father would have called
her after me. I'm sorry you don't like it.'

Mr. Gibson did not know what to say. He was not quite prepared to
plunge into the directly personal style. While he was hesitating,
she went on,--

'Hyacinth Clare! Once upon a time I was quite proud of my pretty
name; and other people thought it pretty, too.'

'I've no doubt--' Mr. Gibson began; and then stopped.

'Perhaps I did wrong in yielding to his wish, to have her called by
such a romantic name. It may excite prejudice against her in some
people; and, poor child! she will have enough to struggle with. A
young daughter is a great charge, Mr. Gibson, especially when there
is only one parent to look after her.'

'You are quite right,' said he, recalled to the remembrance of
Molly; 'though I should have thought that a girl who is so fortunate
as to have a mother could not feel the loss of her father so acutely
as one who is motherless must suffer from her deprivation.'

'You are thinking of your own daughter. It was careless of me to say
what I did. Dear child! how well I remember her sweet little face as
she lay sleeping on my bed. I suppose she is nearly grown-up now.
She must be near my Cynthia's age. How I should like to see her!'

'I hope you will. I should like you to see her. I should like you to
love my poor little Molly,--to love her as your own--' He swallowed
down something that rose in his throat, and was nearly choking him.

'Is he going to offer? ~Is~ he?' she wondered; and she began to
tremble in the suspense before he next spoke.

'Could you love her as your daughter? Will you try? Will you give me
the right of introducing you to her as her future mother; as my
wife?'

There! he had done it--whether it was wise or foolish--he had done
it; but he was aware that the question as to its wisdom came into
his mind the instant that the words were said past recall.

She hid her face in her hands.

'Oh! Mr. Gibson,' she said; and then, a little to his surprise, and a
great deal to her own, she burst into hysterical tears: it was such
a wonderful relief to feel that she need not struggle any more for a
livelihood.

'My dear--my dearest,' said he, trying to soothe her with word and
caress; but, just at the moment, uncertain what name he ought to
use. After her sobbing had abated a little, she said herself, as if
understanding his difficulty,--

'Call me Hyacinth--your own Hyacinth. I can't bear "Clare," it does
so remind me of being a governess, and those days are all past now.'

'Yes; but surely no one can have been more valued, more beloved than
you have been in this family at least.'

'Oh, yes! they have been very good. But still one has always had to
remember one's position.'

'We ought to tell Lady Cumnor,' said he, thinking, perhaps, more of
the various duties which lay before him, in consequence of the step
he had just taken, than of what his future bride was saying.

'You'll tell her, won't you?' said she, looking up in his face with
beseeching eyes. 'I always like other people to tell her things, and
then I can see how she takes them.'

'Certainly! I will do whatever you wish. Shall we go and see if she
is awake now?'

'No! I think not. I had better prepare her. You will come to-morrow,
won't you? and you will tell her then.'

'Yes; that will be best. I ought to tell Molly first. She has the
right to know. I do hope you and she will love each other dearly.'

'Oh, yes! I'm sure we shall. Then you'll come to-morrow and tell
Lady Cumnor? And I'll prepare her.'

'I don't see what preparation is necessary; but you know best, my
dear. When can we arrange for you and Molly to meet?'

Just then a servant came in, and the pair started apart.

'Her ladyship is awake, and wishes to see Mr. Gibson.'

They both followed the man upstairs; Mrs. Kirkpatrick trying hard to
look as if nothing had happened, for she particularly wished 'to
prepare' Lady Cumnor; that is to say, to give her version of Mr
Gibson's extreme urgency, and her own coy unwillingness.

But Lady Cumnor had observant eyes in sickness as well as in health.
She had gone to sleep with the recollection of the passage in her
husband's letter full in her mind, and, perhaps, it gave a direction
to her wakening ideas.

'I'm glad you're not gone, Mr. Gibson. I wanted to tell you----What's
the matter with you both? What have you been saying to Clare? I'm
sure something has happened.'

There was nothing for it, in Mr. Gibson's opinion, but to make a
clean breast of it, and tell her ladyship all. He turned round, and
took hold of Mrs. Kirkpatrick's hand, and said out straight, 'I have
been asking Mrs. Kirkpatrick to be my wife, and to be a mother to my
child; and she has consented. I hardly know how to thank her enough
in words.'

'Umph! I don't see any objection. I dare say you'll be very happy.
I'm very glad of it! Here! shake hands with me, both of you.' Then
laughing a little, she added, 'It does not seem to me that any
exertion has been required on my part.'

Mr. Gibson looked perplexed at these words. Mrs. Kirkpatrick reddened.

'Did she not tell you? Oh, then, I must. It's too good a joke to be
lost, especially as everything has ended so well. When Lord Cumnor's
letter came this morning--this very morning--I gave it to Clare to
read aloud to me, and I saw she suddenly came to a full stop, where
no full stop could be, and I thought it was something about Agnes,
so I took the letter and read--stay! I'll read the sentence to you.
Where's the letter, Clare? Oh! don't trouble yourself, here it is.
"How are Clare and Gibson getting on? You despised my advice to help
on that affair, but I really think a little match-making would be a
very pleasant amusement now that you are shut up in the house; and I
cannot conceive any marriage more suitable." You see, you have my
lord's full approbation. But I must write, and tell him you have
managed your own affairs without any interference of mine. Now we'll
just have a little medical talk, Mr. Gibson, and then you and Clare
shall finish your ~tete-a-tete~.'

They were neither of them quits as desirous of further conversation
together as they had been before the passage out of Lord Cumnor's
letter had been read aloud. Mr. Gibson tried not to think about it,
for he was aware that if he dwelt upon it, he might get to fancy all
sorts of things, as to the conversation which had ended in his
offer. But Lady Cumnor was imperious now, as always.

'Come, no nonsense. I always made my girls go and have
~tete-a-tetes~ with the men who were to be their husbands, whether
they would or no: there's a great deal to be talked over before
every marriage, and you two are certainly old enough to be above
affectation. Go away with you.' So there was nothing for it but for
them to return to the library; Mrs. Kirkpatrick pouting a little, and
Mr. Gibson feeling more like his own cool, sarcastic self, by many
degrees, than he had done when last in that room.

She began, half crying,--

'I cannot tell what poor Kirkpatrick would say if he knew what I
have done. He did so dislike the notion of second marriages, poor
fellow.'

'Let us hope that he does not know, then; or that, if he does know,
he is wiser--I mean, that he sees how second marriages may be most
desirable and expedient in some cases.'

Altogether, this second ~tete-a-tete~, done to command, was not so
satisfactory as the first; and Mr. Gibson was quite alive to the
necessity of proceeding on his round to see his patients before very
much time had elapsed.

'We shall shake down into uniformity before long, I've no doubt,'
said he to himself, as he rode away. 'It's hardly to be expected
that our thoughts should run in the same groove all at once. Nor
should I like it,' he added. 'It would be very flat and stagnant to
have only an echo of one's own opinions from one's wife. Heigho! I
must tell Molly about it: dear little woman, I wonder how she'll
take it! It's done, in a great measure, for her good.' And then he
lost himself in recapitulating Mrs. Kirkpatrick's good qualities, and
the advantages to be gained to his daughter from the step he had
just taken.

It was too late to go round by Hamley that afternoon. The Towers and
the Towers' round lay just in the opposite direction to Hamley. So
it was the next morning before Mr. Gibson arrived at the hall, timing
his visit as well as he could so as to have half-an-hour's private
talk with Molly before Mrs. Hamley came down into the drawing-room.
He thought that his daughter would require sympathy after receiving
the intelligence he had to communicate; and he knew there was no one
more fit to give it than Mrs. Hamley.

It was a brilliantly hot summer's morning; men in their
shirt-sleeves were in the fields getting in the early harvest of
oats; as Mr. Gibson rode slowly along, he could see them over the
tall hedge-rows, and even hear the soothing measured sound of the
fall of the long swathes, as they were mown. The labourers seemed
too hot to talk; the dog, guarding their coats and cans, lay panting
loudly on the other side of the elm, under which Mr. Gibson stopped
for an instant to survey the scene, and gain a little delay before
the interview that he wished was well over. In another minute he had
snapped at himself for his weakness, and put spurs to his horse. He
came up to the hall at a good sharp trot; it was earlier than the
usual time of his visits, and no one was expecting him; all the
stablemen were in the fields, but that signified little to Mr
Gibson; he walked his horse about for five minutes or so before
taking him into the stable, and loosened his girths, examining him
with perhaps unnecessary exactitude. He went into the house by a
private door, and made his way into the drawing-room, half
expecting, however, that Molly would be in the garden. She had been
there, but it was too hot and dazzling now for her to remain out of
doors, and she had come in by the open window of the drawing-room.
Oppressed with the heat, she had fallen asleep in an easy-chair, her
bonnet and open book upon her knee, one arm hanging listlessly down.
She looked very soft, and young, and childlike; and a gush of love
sprang into her father's heart as he gazed at her.

'Molly!' said he, gently, taking the little brown hand that was
hanging down, and holding it in his own. 'Molly!'

She opened her eyes, that for one moment had no recognition in them.
Then the light came brilliantly into them and she sprang up, and
threw her arms round his neck, exclaiming,--

'Oh, papa, my dear, dear papa! What made you come while I was
asleep? I love the pleasure of watching for you.'

Mr. Gibson turned a little paler than he had been before. He still
held her hand, and drew her to a seat by him on a sofa, without
speaking. There was no need; she was chattering away.

'I was up so early! It is so charming to be out here in the fresh
morning air. I think that made me sleepy. But isn't it a gloriously
hot day? I wonder if the Italian skies they talk about can be bluer
than that--that little bit you see just between the oaks--there!'

She pulled her hand away, and used both it and the other to turn her
father's head, so that he should exactly see the very bit she meant.
She was rather struck by his unusual silence.

'Have you heard from Miss Eyre, papa? How are they all? And this
fever that is about? Do you know, papa, I don't think you are
looking well? You want me at home to take care of you. How soon may
I come home?'

'Don't I look well? That must be all your fancy, goosey. I feel
uncommonly well; and I ought to look well, for----I have a piece of
news for you, little woman.' (He felt that he was doing his business
very awkwardly, but he was determined to plunge on.) 'Can you guess
it?'

'How should I?' said she; but her tone was changed, and she was
evidently uneasy, as with the presage of an instinct.

'Why, you see, my love,' said he, again taking her hand, 'that you
are in a very awkward position--a girl growing up in such a family
as mine--young men--which was a piece of confounded stupidity on my
part. And I am obliged to be away so much.'

'But there is Miss Eyre,' said she, sick with the strengthening
indefinite presage of what was to come. 'Dear Miss Eyre, I want
nothing but her and you.'

'Still there are times like the present when Miss Eyre cannot be
with you; her home is not with us; she has other duties. I've been
in great perplexity for some time; but at last I've taken a step
which will, I hope, make us both happier.'

'You're going to be married again,' said she, helping him out, with
a quiet dry voice, and gently drawing her hand out of his.

'Yes. To Mrs. Kirkpatrick--you remember her? They call her Clare at
the Towers. You recollect how kind she was to you that day you were
left there?'

She did not answer. She could not tell what words to use. She was
afraid of saying anything, lest the passion of anger, dislike,
indignation--whatever it was that was boiling up in her
breast--should find vent in cries and screams, or worse, in raging
words that could never be forgotten. It was as if the piece of solid
ground on which she stood had broken from the shore, and she was
drifting out to the infinite sea alone.

Mr. Gibson saw that her silence was unnatural, and half-guessed at
the cause of it. But he knew that she must have time to reconcile
herself to the idea, and still believed that it would be for her
eventual happiness. He had, besides, the relief of feeling that the
secret was told, the confidence made, which he had been dreading for
the last twenty-four hours. He went on recapitulating all the
advantages of the marriage; he knew them off by heart now.

'She's a very suitable age for me. I don't know how old she is
exactly, but she must be nearly forty. I shouldn't have wished to
marry any one younger. She's highly respected by Lord and Lady
Cumnor and their family, which is of itself a character. She has
very agreeable and polished manners--of course, from the circles she
has been thrown into--and you and I, goosey, are apt to be a little
brusque, or so; we must brush up our manners now.'

No remark from her on this little bit of playfulness. He went on,--

'She has been accustomed to housekeeping--economical housekeeping,
too--for of late years she has had a school at Ashcombe, and has
had, of course, to arrange all things for a large family. And last,
but not least, she has a daughter--about your age, Molly--who, of
course, will come and live with us, and be a nice companion--a
sister--for you.'

Still she was silent. At length she said,--

'So I was sent out of the house that all this might be quietly
arranged in my absence?'

Out of the bitterness of her heart she spoke, but she was roused out
of her assumed impassiveness by the effect produced. Her father
started up, and quickly left the room, saying something to
himself--what, she could not hear, though she ran after him,
followed him through dark stone passages, into the glare of the
stable-yard, into the stables--

'Oh, papa, papa--I'm not myself--I don't know what to say about this
hateful--detestable----'

He led his horse out. She did not know if he beard her words. Just
as he mounted, he turned round upon her with a grey grim face,--

'I think it's better for both of us, for me to go away now. We may
say things difficult to forget. We are both much agitated. By
to-morrow we shall be more composed; you will have thought it over,
and have seen that the principal--one great motive, I mean--was your
good. You may tell Mrs. Hamley--I meant to have told her myself. I
will come again to-morrow. Good-by, Molly.'

For many minutes after he had ridden away--long after the sound of
his horse's hoofs on the round stones of the paved lane, beyond the
home-meadows, had died away--Molly stood there, shading her eyes,
and looking at the empty space of air in which his form had last
appeared. Her very breath seemed suspended; only, two or three
times, after long intervals she drew a miserable sigh, which was
caught up into a sob. She turned way at last, but could not go into
the house, could not tell Mrs. Hamley, could not forget how her
father had looked and spoken--and left her.

She went out by a side-door--it was the way by which the gardeners
passed when they took the manure into the garden--and the walk to
which it led was concealed from sight as much as possible by shrubs
and evergreens and over-arching trees. No one would know what became
of her, and, with the ingratitude of misery, she added to herself,
no one would care. Mrs. Hamley had her own husband, her own children,
her close home interests--she was very good and kind, but there was
a bitter grief in Molly's heart, with which the stranger could not
intermeddle. She went quickly on to the bourne which she had fixed
for herself--a seat almost surrounded by the drooping leaves of a
weeping-ash--a seat on the long broad terrace walk on the other side
of the wood, that overlooked the pleasant slope of the meadows
beyond; the walk had probably been made to command this sunny,
peaceful landscape, with trees, and a church spire, two or three
red-tiled roofs of old cottages, and a purple bit of rising ground
in the distance; and at some previous date, when there might have
been a large family of Hamleys residing at the hall, ladies in
hoops, and gentlemen in bag-wigs with swords by their sides, might
have filled up the breadth of the terrace, as they sauntered,
smiling, along. But no one ever cared to saunter there now. It was a
deserted walk. The squire or his sons might cross it in passing to a
little gate that led to the meadow beyond; but no one loitered
there. Molly almost thought that no one knew of the hidden seat
under the ash-tree but herself; for there were not more gardeners
employed upon the grounds than were necessary to keep the
kitchen-gardens and such of the ornamental part as was frequented by
the family, or in sight of the house, in good order.

When she had once got to the seat she broke out with a suppressed
passion of grief; she did not card to analyze the sources of her
tears and sobs--her father was going to be married again--her father
was angry with her; she had done very wrong--he had gone away
displeased; she had lost his love, he was going to be married--away
from her--away from his child--his little daughter--forgetting her
own dear, dear mother. So she thought in a tumultuous kind of way,
sobbing till she was wearied out, and had to gain strength by being
quiet for a time, to break forth into her passion of tears afresh.
She had cast herself on the ground--that natural throne for violent
sorrow--and leant up against the old moss-grown seat; sometimes
burying her face in her hands; sometimes clasping them together, as
if by the tight painful grasp of her fingers she could deaden mental
suffering.

She did not see Roger Hamley returning from the meadows, nor hear
the click of the little white gate. He had been out dredging in
ponds and ditches, and had his wet sling-net, with its imprisoned
treasures of nastiness, over his shoulder. He was coming home to
lunch, having always a fine midday appetite, though he pretended to
despise the meal in theory. But he knew that his mother liked his
companionship then; she depended much upon her luncheon, and was
seldom downstairs and visible to her family much before the time. So
he overcame his theory, for the sake of his mother, and had his
reward in the hearty relish with which he kept her company in
eating.

He did not see Molly as he crossed the terrace-walk on his way
homewards. He had gone about twenty yards on the small wood-path at
right angles to the terrace, when, looking among the grass and wild
plants under the trees, he spied out one which was rare, one which
he had been long wishing to find in flower, and saw it at last, with
those bright keen eyes of his. Down went his net, skilfully twisted
so as to retain its contents, while it lay amid the herbage, and he
himself went with light and well-planted footsteps in search of the
treasure. He was so great a lover of nature that, without any
thought, but habitually, he always avoided treading unnecessarily on
any plant; who knew what long-sought growth or insect might develop
itself in what now appeared but insignificant?

His steps led him in the direction of the ash-tree seat, much less
screened from observation on this side than on the terrace. He
stopped; he saw a light-coloured dress on the ground--somebody
half-lying on the seat, so still just then, he wondered if the
person, whoever it was, had fallen ill or fainted. He paused to
watch. In a minute or two the sobs broke out again--the words. It
was Miss Gibson crying out in a broken voice,--

'Oh, papa, papa! if you would but come back!'

For a minute or two he thought it would be kinder to leave her
believing herself unobserved; he had even made a retrograde step or
two, on tip-toe; but then he heard the miserable sobbing again. It
was farther than his mother could walk, or else, be the sorrow what
it would, she was the natural comforter of this girl, her visitor.
However, whether it was right or wrong, delicate or obtrusive, when
he heard the sad voice talking again, in such tones of uncomforted,
lonely misery, he turned back, and went to the green tent under the
ash-tree. She started up when he came thus close to her; she tried
to check her sobs, and instinctively smoothed her wet tangled hair
back with her hands.

He looked down upon her with grave, kind sympathy, but he did not
know exactly what to say.

'Is it lunch-time?' said she, trying to believe that he did not see
the traces of her tears and the disturbance of her features--that he
had not seen her lying, sobbing her heart out there.

'I don't know. I was going home to lunch. But--you must let me say
it--I couldn't go on when I saw your distress. Has anything
happened?--anything in which I can help you, I mean; for, of course,
I've no right to make the inquiry, if it is any private sorrow, in
which I can be of no use.'

She had exhausted herself so much with crying, that she felt as if
she could neither stand nor walk just yet. She sate down on the
seat, and sighed, and turned so pale, he thought she was going to
faint.

'Wait a moment,' said he, quite unnecessarily, for she could not
have stirred; and he was off like a shot to some spring of water
that he knew of in the wood, and in a minute or two he returned with
careful steps, bringing a little in a broad green leaf, turned into
an impromptu cup. Little as it was, it did her good.

'Thank you!' she said: 'I can walk back now, in a short time. Don't
stop.'

'You must let me,' said he: 'my mother wouldn't like me to leave you
to come home alone, while you are so faint.'

So they remained in silence for a little while; he, breaking off and
examining one or two abnormal leaves of the ash-tree, partly from
the custom of his nature, partly to give her time to recover.

'Papa is going to be married again,' said she, at length.

She could not have said why she told him this; an instant before she
spoke, she had no intention of doing so. He dropped the leaf he held
in his hand, turned round, and looked at her. Her poor wistful eyes
were filling with tears as they met his, with a dumb appeal for
sympathy. Her look was much more eloquent than her words. There was
a momentary pause before he replied, and then it was more because he
felt that he must say something than that he was in any doubt as to
the answer to the question he asked.

'You are sorry for it?'

She did not take her eyes away from his, as her quivering lips
formed the word 'Yes,' though her voice made no sound. He was silent
again now; looking on the ground, kicking softly at a loose pebble
with his foot. His thoughts did not come readily to the surface in
the shape of words; nor was he apt at giving comfort till he saw his
way clear to the real source from which consolation must come. At
last he spoke,--almost as if he was reasoning out the matter with
himself.

'It seems as if there might be cases where--setting the question of
love entirely on one side--it must be almost a duty to find some one
to be a substitute for the mother.... I can believe,' said he, in a
different tone of voice, and looking at Molly afresh, 'that this
step may be greatly for your father's happiness--it may relieve him
from many cares, and may give him a pleasant companion.'

'He had me. You don't know what we were to each other--at least,
what he was to me,' she added, humbly.

'Still he must have thought it for the best, or he wouldn't have
done it. He may have thought it the best for your sake even more
than for his own.'

'That is what he tried to convince me of.'

Roger began kicking the pebble again. He had not got hold of the
right end of the clue. Suddenly he looked up.

'I want to tell you of a girl I know. Her mother died when she was
about sixteen--the eldest of a large family. From that time--all
though the bloom of her youth--she gave herself up to her father
first as his comforter, afterwards as his companion, friend,
secretary--anything you like. He was a man with a great deal of
business on hand, and often came home only to set to afresh to
preparations for the next day's work. Harriet was always there,
ready to help, to talk, or to be silent. It went on for eight or ten
years in this way; and then her father married again,--a woman not
many years older than Harriet herself. Well--they are just the
happiest set of people I know--you wouldn't have thought it likely,
would you?'

She was listening, but she had no heart to say anything. Yet she was
interested in this little story of Harriet--a girl who had been so
much to her father, more than Molly in this early youth of hers
could have been to Mr. Gibson. 'How was it?' she sighed out at last.

'Harriet thought of her father's happiness before she thought of her
own,' Roger answered, with something of severe brevity. Molly needed
the bracing. She began to cry again a little.

'If it were for papa's happiness----'

'He must believe that it is. Whatever you fancy, give him a chance.
He cannot have much comfort, I should think, if he sees you fretting
or pining,--you who have been so much to him, as you say. The lady
herself, too--if Harriet's stepmother had been a selfish woman, and
been always clutching after the gratification of her own wishes; but
she was not: she was as anxious for Harriet to be happy as Harriet
was for her father--and your father's future wife may be another of
the same kind, though such people are rare.'

'I don't think she is, though,' murmured Molly, a waft of
recollection bringing to her mind the details of her day at the
Towers long ago.

Roger did not want to hear Molly's reasons for this doubting speech.
He felt as if he had no right to hear more of Mr. Gibson's family
life, past, present, or to come, than was absolutely necessary for
him, in order that he might comfort and help the crying girl, whom
he had come upon so unexpectedly. And besides, he wanted to go home,
and be with his mother at lunch-time. Yet he could not leave her
alone.

'It is right to hope for the best about everybody, and not to expect
the worst. This sounds like a truism, but it has comforted me before
now, and some day you'll find it useful. One has always to try to
think more of others than of oneself, and it is best not to prejudge
people on the bad side. My sermons aren't long, are they? Have they
given you an appetite for lunch? Sermons always make me hungry, I
know.'

He appeared to be waiting for her to get up and come along with him,
as indeed he was. But he meant her to perceive that he should not
leave her; so she rose up languidly, too languid to say how much she
should prefer being left alone, if he would only go away without
her. She was very weak, and stumbled over the straggling root of a
tree that projected across the path. He, watchful though silent, saw
this stumble, and putting out his hand held her up from falling. He
still held her hand when the occasion was past; this little physical
failure impressed on his heart how young and helpless she was, and
he yearned to her, remembering the passion of sorrow in which he had
found her, and longing to be of some little tender bit of comfort to
her, before they parted--before their ~tete-a-tete~ walk was merged
in the general familiarity of the household life. Yet he did not
know what to say.

'You will have thought me hard,' he burst out at length, as they
were nearing the drawing-room windows and the garden-door. 'I never
can manage to express what I feel, somehow I always fall to
philosophizing, but I am sorry for you. Yes, I am; it's beyond my
power to help you, as far as altering facts goes, but I can feel for
you, in a way which it's best not to talk about, for it can do no
good. Remember how sorry I am for you! I shall often be thinking of
you, though I daresay it's best not to talk about it again.'

She said, 'I know you are sorry,' under her breath, and then she
broke away, and ran indoors, and upstairs to the solitude of her own
room. He went straight to his mother, who was sitting before the
untasted luncheon, as much annoyed by the mysterious unpunctuality
of her visitor as she was capable of being with anything; for she
had heard that Mr. Gibson had been, and was gone, and she could not
discover if he had left any message for her; and her anxiety about
her own health, which some people esteemed hypochondriacal, always
made her particularly craving for the wisdom which might fall from
her doctor's lips.

'Where have you been, Roger? Where is Molly?--Miss Gibson, I mean,'
for she was careful to keep up a barrier of forms between the young
man and young woman who were thrown together in the same household.

'I've been out dredging. (By the way, I left my net on the terrace
walk.) I found Miss Gibson sitting there, crying as if her heart
would break. Her father is going to be married again.'

'Married again! You don't say so.'

'Yes, he is; and she takes it very hardly, poor girl. Mother, I
think if you could send some one to her with a glass of wine, a cup
of tea, or something of that sort--she was very nearly fainting----'

'I'll go to her myself, poor child,' said Mrs. Hamley, rising.

'Indeed you must not,' said he, laying his hand upon her arm. 'We
have kept you waiting already too long; you are looking quite pale.
Hammond can take it,' he continued, ringing the bell. She sate down
again, almost stunned with surprise.

'Whom is he going to marry?'

'I don't know. I didn't ask, and she didn't tell me.'

'That's so like a man. Why, half the character of the affair lies in
the question of whom it is that he is going to marry.'

'I daresay I ought to have asked. But somehow I'm not a good one on
such occasions. I was as sorry as could be for her, and yet I
couldn't tell what to say.'

'What did you say?'

'I gave her the best advice in my power.'

'Advice! you ought to have comforted her. Poor little Molly!'

'I think that if advice is good it's the best comfort.'

'That depends on what you mean by advice. Hush! here she is.'

To their surprise, Molly came in, trying hard to look as usual. She
had bathed her eyes, and arranged her hair; and was making a great
struggle to keep from crying, and to bring her voice into order. She
was unwilling to distress Mrs. Hamley by the sight of pain and
suffering. She did not know that she was following Roger's
injunctions to think more of others than of herself--but so she was.
Mrs. Hamley was not sure if it was wise in her to begin on the piece
of news she had just heard from her son; but she was too full of it
herself to talk of anything else. 'So I hear your father is going to
be married, my dear? May I ask whom it is to?'

'Mrs. Kirkpatrick. I think she was governess a long time ago at the
Countess of Cumnor's. She stays with them a great deal, and they
call her Clare, and I believe they are very fond of her.' Molly
tried to speak of her future stepmother in the most favourable
manner she knew how.

'I think I've heard of her. Then she is not very young? That's as it
should be. A widow too. Has she any family?'

'One girl, I believe. But I know so little about her!'

Molly was very near crying again.

'Never mind, my dear. That will all come in good time. Roger, you've
hardly eaten anything; where are you going?'

'To fetch my dredging-net. It's full of things I don't want to lose.
Besides, I never eat much, as a general thing.' The truth was partly
told, not all. He thought he had better leave the other two alone.
His mother had such sweet power of sympathy, that she would draw the
sting out of the girl's heart, when she had her alone. As soon as he
was gone, Molly lifted up her poor swelled eyes, and, looking at Mrs
Hamley, she said,--'He was so good to me. I mean to try and remember
all he said.'

'I'm glad to hear it, love; very glad. From what he told me, I was
afraid he had been giving you a little lecture. He has a good heart,
but he isn't so tender in his manner as Osborne. Roger is a little
rough sometimes.'

'Then I like roughness. It did me good. It made me feel how
badly--oh, Mrs. Hamley, I did behave so badly to papa this morning.'

She rose up and threw herself into Mrs. Hamley's arms, and sobbed
upon her breast. Her sorrow was not now for the fact that her father
was going to be married again, but for her own ill-behaviour.

If Roger was not tender in words, he was in deeds. Unreasonable and
possibly exaggerated as Molly's grief had appeared to him, it was
real suffering to her; and he took some pains to lighten it, in his
own way, which was characteristic enough. That evening he adjusted
his microscope, and put the treasures he had collected in his
morning's ramble on a little table; and then he asked his mother to
come and admire. Of course Molly came too, and this was what he had
intended. He tried to interest her in his pursuit, cherished her
first little morsel of curiosity, and nursed it into a very proper
desire for further information. Then he brought out books on the
subject, and translated the slightly pompous and technical language
into homely every-day speech. Molly had come down to dinner,
wondering how the long hours till bedtime would ever pass away:
hours during which she must not speak on the one thing that would be
occupying her mind to the exclusion of all others; for she was
afraid that already she had wearied Mrs. Hamley with it during their
afternoon ~tete-a-tete~. But prayers and bedtime came long before
she had expected; she had been refreshed by a new current of
thought, and she was very thankful to Roger. And now there was
to-morrow to come, and a confession of penitence to be made to her
father.

But Mr. Gibson did not want speech or words. He was not fond of
expressions of feeling at any time, and perhaps, too, he felt that
the less said the better on a subject about which it was evident
that his daughter and he were not thoroughly and impulsively in
harmony. He read her repentance in her eyes; he saw how much she had
suffered; and he had a sharp pang at his heart in consequence. But
he stopped her from speaking out her regret at her behaviour the day
before, by a 'There, there, that will do. I know all you want to
say. I know my little, Molly--my silly little goosey--better than
she knows herself. I've brought you an invitation. Lady Cumnor wants
you to go and spend next Thursday at the Towers!'

'Do you wish me to go?' said she, her heart sinking.

'I wish you and Hyacinth to become better acquainted--to learn to
love each other.'

'Hyacinth!' said Molly, entirely bewildered.

'Yes; Hyacinth! It's the silliest name I ever heard of; but it's
hers, and I must call her by it. I can't bear Clare, which is what
my lady and all the family at the Towers call her; and "Mrs
Kirkpatrick" is formal and nonsensical too, as she'll change her
name so soon.'

'When, papa?' asked Molly, feeling as if she were living in a
strange, unknown world.

'Not till after Michaelmas.' And then, continuing on his own
thoughts, he added, 'And the worst is, she's gone and perpetuated
her own affected name by having her daughter called after her.
Cynthia! One thinks of the moon, and the man in the moon with his
bundle of faggots. I'm thankful you're plain Molly, child.'

'How old is she--Cynthia, I mean?'

'Ay, get accustomed to the name. I should think Cynthia Kirkpatrick
was about as old as you are. She's at school in France, picking up
airs and graces. She's to come home for the wedding, so you'll be
able to get acquainted with her then; though, I think, she's to go
back again for another half-year or so.'

CHAPTER XI

MAKING FRIENDSHIP

Mr. Gibson believed that Cynthia Kirkpatrick was to return to England
to be present at her mother's wedding; but Mrs. Kirkpatrick had no
such intention. She was not what is commonly called a woman of
determination; but somehow what she disliked she avoided, and what
she liked she tried to do, or to have. So although in the
conversation, which she had already led to, as to the when and the
how she was to be married, she had listened quietly to Mr. Gibson's
proposal that Molly and Cynthia should be the two bridesmaids, she
had felt how disagreeable it would be to her to have her young
daughter flashing out her beauty by the side of the faded bride, her
mother; and as the further arrangements for the wedding became more
definite, she saw further reasons in her own mind for Cynthia's
remaining quietly at her school at Boulogne.

Mrs. Kirkpatrick had gone to bed that first night of her engagement
to Mr. Gibson, fully anticipating a speedy marriage. She looked to it
as a release from the thraldom of keeping school--keeping an
unprofitable school, with barely enough of pupils to pay for
house-rent and taxes, food, washing, and the requisite masters. She
saw no reason for ever going back to Ashcombe, except to wind up her
affairs, and to pack up her clothes. She hoped that Mr. Gibson's
ardour would be such that he would press on the marriage, and urge
her never to resume her school drudgery, but to relinquish it now
and for ever. She even made up a very pretty, very passionate speech
for him in her own mind; quite sufficiently strong to prevail upon
her, and to overthrow the scruples which she felt that she ought to
have, at telling the parents of her pupils that she did not intend
to resume school, and that they must find another place of education
for their daughters, in the last week but one of the midsummer
holidays.

It was rather like a douche of cold water on Mrs. Kirkpatrick's
plans, when the next morning at breakfast Lady Cumnor began to
decide upon the arrangements and duties of the two middle-aged
lovers.

'Of course you can't give up your school all at once, Clare. The
wedding can't be before Christmas, but that will do very well. We
shall all be down at the Towers; and it will be a nice amusement for
the children to go over to Ashcombe, and see you married.'

'I think--I am afraid--I don't believe Mr. Gibson will like waiting
so long; men are so impatient under these circumstances.'

'Oh, nonsense! Lord Cumnor has recommended you to his tenants, and
I'm sure he wouldn't like them to be put to any inconvenience. Mr
Gibson will see that in a moment. He's a man of sense, or else he
wouldn't be our family doctor. Now, what are you going to do about
your little girl? Have you fixed yet?'

'No. Yesterday there seemed so little time, and when one is agitated
it is so difficult to think of everything. Cynthia is nearly
eighteen, old enough to go out as a governess, if he wishes it, but
I don't think he will. He is so generous and kind.'

'Well! I must give you time to settle some of your affairs to-day.
Don't waste it in sentiment, you're too old for that. Come to a
clear understanding with each other; it will be for your happiness
in the long run.'

So they did come to a clear understanding about one or two things.
To Mrs. Kirkpatrick's dismay, she found that Mr. Gibson had no more
idea than Lady Cumnor of her breaking faith with the parents of her
pupils. Though he really was at a serious loss as to what was to
become of Molly until she could be under the protection of his new
wife at her own home, and though his domestic worries teased him
more and more every day, he was too honourable to think of
persuading Mrs. Kirkpatrick to give up school a week sooner than was
right for his sake. He did not even perceive how easy the task of
persuasion would be; with all her winning wiles she could scarcely
lead him to feel impatience for the wedding to take place at
Michaelmas.

'I can hardly tell you what a comfort and relief it will be to me,
Hyacinth, when you are once my wife--the mistress of my home--poor
little Molly's mother and protector; but I wouldn't interfere with
your previous engagements for the world. It wouldn't be right.'

'Thank you, my own love. How good you are! So many men would think
only of their own wishes and interests! I'm sure the parents of my
dear pupils will admire you--will be quite surprised at your
consideration for their interests.'

'Don't tell them, then. I hate being admired. Why shouldn't you say
it is your wish to keep on your school till they've had time to look
out for another?'

'Because it isn't,' said she, daring all. 'I long to be making you
happy; I want to make your home a place of rest and comfort to you;
and I do so wish to cherish your sweet Molly, as I hope to do, when
I come to be her mother. I can't take virtue to myself which doesn't
belong to me. If I have to speak for myself, I shall say, "Good
people, find a school for your daughters by Michaelmas,--for after
that time I must go and make the happiness of others." I can't bear
to think of your long rides in November--coming home wet at night
with no one to take care of you. Oh! if you leave it to me, I shall
advise the parents to take their daughters away from the care of one
whose heart will be absent. Though I couldn't consent to any time
before Michaelmas--that wouldn't be fair or right, and I'm sure you
wouldn't urge me--you are too good.'

'Well, if you think that they will consider we have acted uprightly
by them, let it be Michaelmas with all my heart. What does Lady
Cumnor say?'

'Oh! I told her I was afraid you wouldn't like waiting, because of
your difficulties with your servants, and because of Molly--it would
be so desirable to enter on the new relationship with her as soon as
possible.'

'To be sure; so it would. Poor child! I'm afraid the intelligence of
my engagement has rather startled her.'

'Cynthia will feel it deeply, too,' said Mrs. Kirkpatrick, unwilling
to let her daughter be behind Mr. Gibson's in sensibility and
affection.

'We will have her over to the wedding! She and Molly shall be
bridesmaids,' said Mr. Gibson, in the unguarded warmth of his heart.

This plan did not quite suit Mrs. Kirkpatrick; but she thought it
best not to oppose it, until she had a presentable excuse to give,
and perhaps also some reason would naturally arise out of future
circumstances; so at this time she only smiled, and softly pressed
the hand she held in hers.

It is a question whether Mrs. Kirkpatrick or Molly wished the most
for the day to be over which they were to spend together at the
Towers. Mrs. Kirkpatrick was rather weary of girls as a class. All
the trials of her life were connected with girls in some way. She
was very young when she first became a governess, and had been
worsted in her struggles with her pupils, in the first place she
ever went to. Her elegance of appearance and manner, and her
accomplishments, more than her character and acquirements, had
rendered it more easy for her than for most to obtain good
'situations;' and she had been absolutely petted in some; but still
she was constantly encountering naughty or stubborn, or
over-conscientious, or severe-judging, or curious and observant
girls. And again, before Cynthia was born, she had longed for a boy,
thinking it possible that if some three or four intervening
relations died, he might come to be a baronet; and instead of a son,
lo and behold it was a daughter! Nevertheless, with all her dislike
to girls in the abstract as 'the plagues of her life' (and her
aversion was not diminished by the fact of her having kept a school
for 'young ladies' at Ashcombe), she really meant to be as kind as
she could be to her new step-daughter, whom she remembered
principally as a black-haired, sleepy child, in whose eyes she had
read admiration of herself. Mrs. Kirkpatrick accepted Mr. Gibson
principally because she was tired of the struggle of earning her own
livelihood; but she liked him personally--nay, she even loved him in
her torpid way, and she intended to be good to his daughter, though
she felt as if it would have been easier for her to have been good
to his son.

Molly was bracing herself up in her way too. 'I will be like
Harriet. I will think of others. I won't think of myself,' she kept
repeating all the way to the Towers. But there was no selfishness in
wishing that the day was come to an end, and that she did very
heartily. Mrs. Hamley sent her thither in the carriage, which was to
wait and bring her back at night. Mrs. Hamley wanted Molly to make a
favourable impression, and she sent for her to come and show herself
before she set out.

'Don't put on your silk gown--your white muslin will look the
nicest, my dear.'

'Not my silk? it is quite new! I had it to come here.'

'Still, I think your white muslin suits you the best.' 'Anything but
that horrid plaid silk' was the thought in Mrs. Hamley's mind; and,
thanks to her, Molly set off for the Towers, looking a little
quaint, it is true, but thoroughly ladylike, if she was
old-fashioned. Her father was to meet her there; but he had been
detained, and she had to face Mrs. Kirkpatrick by herself, the
recollection of her last day of misery at the Towers fresh in her
mind as if it had been yesterday. Mrs. Kirkpatrick was as caressing
as could be. She held Molly's hand in hers, as they sate together in
the library, after the first salutations were over. She kept
stroking it from time to time, and purring out inarticulate sounds
of loving satisfaction, as she gazed in the blushing face.

'What eyes! so like your dear father's! How we shall love each
other--shan't we, darling? For his sake!'

'I'll try,' said Molly, bravely; and then she could not finish her
sentence.

'And you've just got the same beautiful black curling hair!' said
Mrs. Kirkpatrick, softly lifting one of Molly's curls from off her
white temple.

'Papa's hair is growing grey,' said Molly.

'Is it? I never see it. I never shall see it. He will always be to
me the handsomest of men.'

Mr. Gibson was really a very handsome man, and Molly was pleased with
the compliment; but she could not help saying,--

'Still he will grow old, and his hair will grow grey. I think he
will be just as handsome, but it won't be as a young man.'

'Ah! that's just it, love. He'll always be handsome; some people
always are. And he is so fond of you, dear.' Molly's colour flashed
into her face. She did not want an assurance of her own father's
love from this strange woman. She could not help being angry; all
she could do was to keep silent. 'You don't know how he speaks of
you; "his little treasure," as he calls you. I'm almost jealous
sometimes.'

Molly took her hand away, and her heart began to harden; these
speeches were so discordant to her. But she set her teeth together,
and 'tried to be good.'

'We must make him so happy. I'm afraid he has had a great deal to
annoy him at home; but we will do away with all that now. You must
tell me,' seeing the cloud in Molly's eyes, 'what he likes and
dislikes, for of course you will know.'

Molly's face cleared a little; of course she did know. She had not
watched and loved him so long without believing that she understood
him better than any one else; though how he had come to like Mrs
Kirkpatrick enough to wish to marry her, was an unsolved problem
that she unconsciously put aside as inexplicable. Mrs. Kirkpatrick
went on,--'All men have their fancies and antipathies, even the
wisest. I have known some gentlemen annoyed beyond measure by the
merest trifles; leaving a door open, or spilling tea in their
saucers, or a shawl crookedly put on. Why,' continued she, lowering
her voice, 'I know of a house to which Lord Hollingford will never
be asked again because he didn't wipe his shoes on both the mats in
the hall! Now you must tell me what your dear father dislikes most
in these fanciful ways, and I shall take care to avoid it. You must
be my little friend and helper in pleasing him. It will be such a
pleasure to me to attend to his slightest fancies. About my dress,
too--what colours does he like best? I want to do everything in my
power with a view to his approval.'

Molly was gratified by all this, and began to think that really,
after all, perhaps her father had done well for himself; and that if
she could help towards his new happiness, she ought to do it. So she
tried very conscientiously to think over Mr. Gibson's wishes and
ways; to ponder over what annoyed him the most in his household.

'I think,' said she, 'papa isn't particular about many things; but I
think our not having the dinner quite punctual--quite ready for him
when he comes in, fidgets him more than anything. You see, he has
often had a long ride, and there is another long ride to come, and
he has only half-an-hour--sometimes only a quarter--to eat his
dinner in.'

'Thank you, my own love. Punctuality! Yes; it's a great thing in a
household. It's what I've had to enforce with my young ladies at
Ashcombe. No wonder poor dear Mr. Gibson has been displeased at his
dinner not being ready, and he so hard-worked!'

'Papa doesn't care what he has, if it's only ready. He would take
bread-and-cheese, if cook would only send it in instead of dinner.'

'Bread-and-cheese! Does Mr. Gibson eat cheese?'

'Yes; he's very fond of it,' said Molly, innocently. 'I've known him
eat toasted cheese when he has been too tired to fancy anything
else.'

'Oh! but, my dear, we must change all that. I shouldn't like to
think of your father eating cheese; it's such a strong-smelling,
coarse kind of thing. We must get him a cook who can toss him up an
omelette, or something elegant. Cheese is only fit for the kitchen.'

'Papa is very fond of it,' persevered Molly.

'Oh! but we will cure him of that. I couldn't bear the smell of
cheese; and I'm sure he would be sorry to annoy me.'

Molly was silent; it did not do, she found, to be too minute in
telling about her father's likes or dislikes. She had better leave
them for Mrs. Kirkpatrick to find out for herself. It was an awkward
pause; each was trying to find something agreeable to say. Molly
spoke at length. 'Please! I should so like to know something about
Cynthia--your daughter.'

'Yes, call her Cynthia. It's a pretty name, isn't it? Cynthia
Kirkpatrick. Not so pretty, though, as my old name, Hyacinth Clare.
People used to say it suited me so well. I must show you an acrostic
a gentleman--he was a lieutenant in the 53rd--made upon it. Oh! we
shall have a great deal to say to each other, I foresee!'

'But about Cynthia?'

'Oh, yes! about dear Cynthia. What do you want to know, my dear?'

'Papa said she was to live with us! When will she come?'

'Oh, was it not sweet of your kind father? I thought of nothing else
but Cynthia's going out as a governess when she had completed her
education; she has been brought up for it, and has had great
advantages. But good dear Mr. Gibson wouldn't hear of it. He said
yesterday that she must come and live with us when she left school.'

'When will she leave school?'

'She went for two years. I don't think I must let her leave before
next summer. She teaches English as well as learning French. Next
summer she shall come home, and then shan't we be a happy little
quartette?'

'I hope so,' said Molly. 'But she is to come to the wedding, isn't
she?' she went on timidly, now knowing how far Mrs. Kirkpatrick would
like the allusion to her marriage.

'Your father has begged for her to come; but we must think about it
a little more before quite fixing it. The journey is a great
expense!'

'Is she like you? I do so want to see her.'

'She is very handsome, people say. In the bright-coloured
style,--perhaps something like what I was. But I like the
dark-haired foreign kind of beauty best--just now,' touching Molly's
hair, and looking at her with an expression of sentimental
remembrance.

'Does Cynthia--is she very clever and accomplished?' asked Molly, a
little afraid lest the answer should remove Miss Kirkpatrick at too
great a distance from her.

'She ought to be; I've paid ever so much money to have her taught by
the best masters. But you will see her before long, and I'm afraid
we must go now to Lady Cumnor. It has been very charming having you
all to myself, but I know Lady Cumnor will be expecting us now, and
she was very curious to see you,--my future daughter, as she calls
you.'

Molly followed Mrs. Kirkpatrick into the morning-room, where Lady
Cumnor was sitting--a little annoyed, because, having completed her
~toilette~ earlier than usual, Clare had not been aware by instinct
of the fact, and so had not brought Molly Gibson for inspection a
quarter of an hour before. Every small occurrence is an event in the
day of a convalescent invalid, and a little while ago Molly would
have met with patronizing appreciation, where now she had to
encounter criticism. Of Lady Cumnor's character as an individual she
knew nothing; she only knew she was going to see and be seen by a
live countess; nay, more, by '~the~ countess' of Hollingford.

Mrs. Kirkpatrick led her into Lady Cumnor's presence by the hand, and
in presenting her, said,--'My dear little daughter, Lady Cumnor!'

'Now, Clare, don't let me have nonsense. She is not your daughter
yet, and may never be,--I believe that one-third of the engagements
I have heard of, have never come to marriages. Miss Gibson, I am
very glad to see you, for your father's sake; when I know you
better, I hope it will be for your own.'

Molly very heartily hoped that she might never be known any better
by the stern-looking lady who sate so uprightly in the easy chair,
prepared for lounging, and which therefore gave all the more effect
to the stiff attitude. Lady Cumnor luckily took Molly's silence for
acquiescent humility, and went on speaking after a further little
pause of inspection.

'Yes, yes, I like her looks, Clare. You may make something of her.
It will be a great advantage to you, my dear, to have a lady who has
trained up several young people of quality always about you just at
the time when you are growing up. I'll tell you what, Clare!'--a
sudden thought striking her,--'you and she must become better
acquainted--you know nothing of each other at present; you are not
to be married till Christmas, and what could be better than that she
should go back with you to Ashcombe! She would be with you
constantly, and have the advantage of the companionship of your
young people, which would be a good thing for an only child! It's a
capital plan; I'm very glad I thought of it!'

Now it would be difficult to say which of Lady Cumnor's two hearers
was the most dismayed at the idea which had taken possession of her.
Mrs. Kirkpatrick had no fancy for being encumbered with a
step-daughter before her time. If Molly came to be an inmate of her
house, farewell to many little background economies, and a still
more serious farewell to many little indulgences, that were innocent
enough in themselves, but which Mrs. Kirkpatrick's former life had
caused her to look upon as sins to be concealed: the dirty
dog's-eared delightful novel from the Ashcombe circulating library,
the leaves of which she turned over with a pair of scissors. the
lounging-chair which she had for use at her own home, straight and
upright as she sate now in Lady Cumnor's presence; the dainty
morsel, savoury and small, to which she treated herself for her own
solitary supper,--all these and many other similarly pleasant things
would have to be foregone if Molly came to be her pupil,
parlour-boarder, or visitor, as Lady Cumnor was planning. One--two
things Clare was instinctively resolved upon: to be married at
Michaelmas, and not to have Molly at Ashcombe. But she smiled as
sweetly as if the plan proposed was the most charming project in the
world, while all the time her poor brains were beating about in
every bush for the reasons or excuses of which she should make use
at some future time. Molly, however, saved her all this trouble. It
was a question which of the three was the most surprised by the
words which burst out of her lips. She did not mean to speak, but
her heart was very full, and almost before she was aware of her
thought she heard herself saying,--

'I don't think it would be nice at all. I mean, my lady, that I
should dislike it very much; it would be taking me away from papa
just these very few last months. I will like you,' she went on, her
eyes full of tears; and, turning to Mrs. Kirkpatrick, she put her
hand into her future stepmother's with the prettiest and most
trustful action. 'I will try hard to love you, and to do all I can
to make you happy. but you must not take me away from papa just this
very last bit of time that I shall have him.'

Mrs. Kirkpatrick fondled the hand thus placed in hers, and was
grateful to the girl for her outspoken opposition to Lady Cumnor's
plan. Clare was, however, exceedingly unwilling to back up Molly by
any words of her own until Lady Cumnor had spoken and given the cue.
But there was something in Molly's little speech, or in her
straightforward manner, that amused instead of irritating Lady
Cumnor in her present mood. Perhaps she was tired of the silkiness
with which she had been shut up for so many days.

She put up her glasses, and looked at them both before speaking.
Then she said,--'Upon my word, young lady! Why, Clare, you've got
your work before you! Not but what there is a good deal of truth in
what she says. It must be very disagreeable to a girl of her age to
have a stepmother coming in between her father and herself, whatever
may be the advantages to her in the long run.'

Molly almost felt as if she could make a friend of the stiff old
countess, for her clearness of sight as to the plan proposed being a
trial; but she was afraid, in her new-born desire of thinking for
others, of Mrs. Kirkpatrick being hurt. She need not have feared as
far as outward signs went, for the smile was still on that lady's
pretty rosy lips, and the soft fondling of her hand never stopped.
Lady Cumnor was more interested in Molly the more she looked at her;
and her gaze was pretty steady through her gold-rimmed eye-glasses.
She began a sort of catechism; a string of very straightforward
questions, such as any lady under the rank of countess might have
scrupled to ask, but which were not unkindly meant.

'You are sixteen, are you not?'

'No; I am seventeen. My birthday was three weeks ago.'

'Very much the same thing, I should think. Have you ever been to
school?'

'No, never! Miss Eyre has taught me everything I know.'

'Umph! Miss Eyre was your governess, I suppose? I should not have
thought your father could have afforded to keep a governess. But of
course he must know his own affairs best.'

'Certainly, my lady,' replied Molly, a little touchy as to any
reflections on her father's wisdom.

'You say "certainly!" as if it was a matter of course that every one
should know their own affairs best. You are very young, Miss
Gibson--very. You'll know better before you come to my age. And I
suppose you've been taught music, and the use of the globes, and
French, and all the usual accomplishments, since you have had a
governess? I never heard of such nonsense!' she went on, lashing
herself up. 'An only daughter! If there had been half-a-dozen girls,
there might have been some sense in it.'

Molly did not speak but it was by a strong effort that she kept
silence. Mrs. Kirkpatrick fondled her hand more perseveringly than
ever, hoping thus to express a sufficient amount of sympathy to
prevent her from saying anything injudicious. But the caress had
become wearisome to Molly, and only irritated her nerves. She took
her hand out of Mrs. Kirkpatrick's, with a slight manifestation of
impatience.

It was, perhaps, fortunate for the general peace that just at this
moment Mr. Gibson was announced. It is odd enough to see how the
entrance of a person of the opposite sex into an assemblage of
either men or women calms down the little discordances and the
disturbance of mood. It was the case now; at Mr. Gibson's entrance my
lady took off her glasses, and smoothed her brow; Mrs. Kirkpatrick
managed to get up a very becoming blush, and as for Molly, her face
glowed with delight, and the white teeth and pretty dimples came out
like sunlight on a landscape.

Of course, after the first greeting, my lady had to have a private
interview with her doctor; and Molly and her future stepmother
wandered about in the gardens with their arms round each other's
waists, or hand in hand, like the babes in the wood; Mrs. Kirkpatrick
active in such endearments, Molly passive, and feeling within
herself very shy and strange; for she had that particular kind of
shy modesty which makes any one uncomfortable at receiving caresses
from a person towards whom the heart does not go forth with an
impulsive welcome.

Then came the early dinner; Lady Cumnor having hers in the quiet of
her own room, to which she was still a prisoner. Once or twice
during the meal, the idea crossed Molly's mind that her father
disliked his position as a middle-aged lover being made so evident
to the men in waiting as it was by Mrs. Kirkpatrick's affectionate
speeches and innuendos. He tried to banish every tint of pink
sentimentalism from the conversation, and to confine it to matter of
fact; and when Mrs. Kirkpatrick would persevere in dwelling upon such
facts as had a bearing upon the future relationship of the parties,
he insisted upon viewing them in the most matter-of-fact way; and
this continued even after the men had left the room. An old rhyme
Molly had heard Betty use, would keep running in her head and making
her uneasy,--

Two is company,
Three is trumpery.

But where could she go to in that strange house? What ought she to
do? She was roused from this fit of wonder and abstraction by her
father's saying,--'What do you think of this plan of Lady Cumnor's?
She says she was advising you to have Molly as a visitor at Ashcombe
until we are married.'

Mrs. Kirkpatrick's countenance fell. If only Molly would be so good
as to testify again, as she had done before Lady Cumnor! But if the
proposal was made by her father, it would come to his daughter from
a different quarter than it had done from a strange lady, be she
ever so great. Molly did not say anything; she only looked pale, and
wistful, and anxious. Mrs. Kirkpatrick had to speak for herself.

'It would be a charming plan, only--Well! we know why we would
rather not have it, don't we, love? And we won't tell papa, for fear
of making him vain. No! I think I must leave her with you, dear Mr
Gibson, to have you all to herself for these last few weeks.
It would be cruel to take her away.'

'But you know, my dear, I told you of the reason why it does not do
to have Molly at home just at present,' said Mr. Gibson, eagerly. For
the more he knew of his future wife, the more he felt it necessary
to remember that, with all her foibles, she would be able to stand
between Molly and any such adventures as that which had occurred
lately with Mr. Coxe; so that one of the good reasons for the step he
had taken was always present to him, while it had slipped off the
smooth surface of Mrs. Kirkpatrick's mirror-like mind without leaving
any impression. She now recalled it, on seeing Mr. Gibson's anxious
face.

But what were Molly's feelings at these last words of her father's?
She had been sent from home for some reason, kept a secret from her,
but told to this strange woman. Was there to be perfect confidence
between these two, and she to be for ever shut out? Was she, and
what concerned her--though how, she did not know--to be discussed
between them for the future, and she to be kept in the dark? A
bitter pang of jealousy made her heart-sick. She might as well go to
Ashcombe, or anywhere else, now. Thinking more of others' happiness
than of her own was very fine; but did it not mean giving up her
very individuality, quenching all the warm love, the keen desires,
that made her herself? Yet in this deadness lay her only comfort; or
so it seemed. Wandering in such mazes, she hardly knew how the
conversation went on; a third was indeed 'trumpery,' where there was
entire confidence between the two who were company, from which the
other was shut out. She was positively unhappy, and her father did
not appear to see it; he was absorbed with his new plans and his new
wife that was to be. But he did notice it; and was keenly sorry for
his little girl; only he thought that there was a greater chance for
the future harmony of the household, if he did not lead Molly to
define her present feelings by putting them into words. It was his
general plan to repress emotion by not showing the sympathy he felt.
Yet, when he had to leave, he took Molly's hand in his, and held it
there, in such a different manner to that in which Mrs. Kirkpatrick
had done; and his voice softened to his child as he bade her
good-by, and added the words (most unusual to him), 'God bless you,
child!'

Molly had held up all the day bravely; she had not shown anger, or
repugnance, or annoyance, or regret; but when once more by herself
in the Hamley carriage, she burst into a passion of tears, and cried
her fill till she reached the village of Hamley. Then she tried in
vain to smooth her face into smiles, and do away with the other
signs of her grief. She only hoped she could run upstairs to her own
room without notice, and bathe her eyes in cold water before she was
seen. But at the hall-door she was caught by the squire and Roger
coming in from an after-dinner stroll in the garden, and hospitably
anxious to help her to alight. Roger saw the state of things in an
instant, and saying,--

'My mother has been looking for you to come back for this last
hour,' he led the way to the drawing-room. But Mrs. Hamley was not
there; the squire had stopped to speak to the coachman about one of
the horses; they two were alone. Roger said,--

'I am afraid you have had a very trying day. I have thought of you
several times, for I know how awkward these new relations are.'

'Thank you,' said she, her lips trembling, and on the point of
crying again. 'I did try to remember what you said, and to think
more of others, but it is so difficult sometimes; you know it is,
don't you?'

'Yes,' said he, gravely. He was gratified by her simple confession
of having borne his words of advice in mind, and tried to act up to
them. He was but a very young man, and he was honestly flattered;
perhaps this led him on to offer more advice, and this time it was
evidently mingled with sympathy. He did not want to draw out her
confidence, which he felt might very easily be done with such a
simple girl; but he wished to help her by giving her a few of the
principles on which he had learnt to rely. 'It is difficult,' he
went on, 'but by-and-by you will be so much happier for it.'

'No, I shan't!' said Molly, shaking her head. 'It will be very dull
when I shall have killed myself, as it were, and live only in trying
to do, and to be, as other people like. I don't see any end to it. I
might as well never have lived. And as for the happiness you speak
of, I shall never be happy again.'

There was an unconscious depth in what she said, that Roger did not
know how to answer at the moment; it was easier to address himself
to the assertion of the girl of seventeen, that she should never be
happy again.

'Nonsense: perhaps in ten years' time you will be looking back on
this trial as a very light one--who knows?'

'I daresay it seems foolish; perhaps all our earthly trials will
appear foolish to us after a while. perhaps they seem so now to
angels. But we are ourselves, you know, and this is now, not some
time to come, a long, long way off. And we are not angels, to be
comforted by seeing the ends for which everything is sent.'

She had never spoken so long a sentence to him before; and when she
had said it, though she did not take her eyes away from his, as they
stood steadily looking at each other, she blushed a little; she
could not have told why. Nor did he tell himself why a sudden
pleasure came over him as he gazed at her simple expressive
face--and for a moment lost the sense of what she was saying, in the
sensation of pity for her sad earnestness. In an instant more he was
himself again. Only it is pleasant to the wisest, most reasonable
youth of one or two and twenty to find himself looked up to as a
Mentor by a girl of seventeen.

'I know, I understand. Yes: it is ~now~ we have to do with. Don't
let us go into metaphysics.' Molly opened her eyes wide at this. Had
she been talking metaphysics without knowing it? 'One looks forward
to a mass of trials, which will only have to be encountered one by
one, little by little. Oh, here is my mother! she will tell you
better than I can.'

And the ~tete-a-tete~ was merged in a trio. Mrs. Hamley lay down;
she had not been well all day--she had missed Molly, she said,--and
now she wanted to hear of all the adventures that had occurred to
the girl at the Towers. Molly sate on a stool close to the head of
the sofa, and Roger, though at first he took up a book and tried to
read that he might be no restraint, soon found his reading all a
pretence: it was so interesting to listen to Molly's little
narrative, and, besides, if he could give her any help in her time
of need, was it not his duty to make himself acquainted with all the
circumstances of her case?

And so they went on during all the remaining time of Molly's stay at
Hamley. Mrs. Hamley sympathized, and liked to hear details, as the
French say, her sympathy was given ~en detail~, the squire's
~en gros~. He was very sorry for her evident grief, and almost felt
guilty, as if he had had a share in bringing it about, by the
mention he had made of the possibility of Mr. Gibson's marrying
again, when first Molly had come on her visit to them. He said to
his wife more than once,--

''Pon my word, now, I wish I'd never spoken those unlucky words that
first day at dinner. Do you remember how she took them up? It was
like a prophecy of what was to come, now, wasn't it? And she looked
pale from that day, and I don't think she has ever fairly enjoyed
her food since. I must take more care what I say for the future. Not
but what Gibson is doing the very best thing, both for himself and
her, that he can do. I told him so only yesterday. But I'm very
sorry for the little girl, though. I wish I'd never spoken about it,
that I do! but it was like a prophecy, wasn't it?'

Roger tried hard to find out a reasonable and right method of
comfort, for he, too, in his way, was sorry for the girl, who
bravely struggled to be cheerful, in spite of her own private grief,
for his mother's sake. He felt as if high principle and noble
precept ought to perform an immediate work. But they do not, for
there is always the unknown quantity of individual experience and
feeling, which offer a tacit resistance, the amount incalculable by
another, to all good counsel and high decree. But the bond between
the Mentor and his Telemachus strengthened every day. He endeavoured
to lead her out of morbid thought into interest in other than
personal things; and, naturally enough, his own objects of interest
came readiest to hand. She felt that he did her good, she did not
know why or how; but after a talk with him, she always fancied that
she had got the clue to goodness and peace, whatever befell.

CHAPTER XII

PREPARING FOR THE WEDDING

Meanwhile the love-affairs between the middle-aged couple were
prospering well, after a fashion; after the fashion that they liked
best, although it might probably have appeared dull and prosaic to
younger people. Lord Cumnor had come down in great glee at the news
he had heard from his wife at the Towers. He, too, seemed to think
he had taken an active part in bringing about the match by only
speaking about it. His first words on the subject to Lady Cumnor
were,--

'I told you so. Now didn't I say what a good, suitable thing this
affair between Gibson and Clare would be! I don't know when I have
been so much pleased. You may despise the trade of match-maker, my
lady, but I am very proud of it. After this, I shall go on looking
out for suitable cases among the middle-aged people of my
acquaintance. I shan't meddle with young folks, they are so apt to
be fanciful; but I have been so successful in this, that I do think
it is a good encouragement to go on.'

'Go on--with what?' asked Lady Cumnor, drily.

'Oh, planning--You can't deny that I planned this match.'

'I don't think you are likely to do either much good or harm by
planning,' she replied, with cool, good sense.

'It puts it into people's heads, my dear.'

'Yes, if you speak about your plans to them, of course it does. But
in this case you never spoke to either Mr. Gibson, or Clare, did
you?'

All at once the recollection of how Clare had come upon the passage
in Lord Cumnor's letter flashed on his lady, but she did not say
anything about it, but left her husband to flounder about as best he
might.

'No! I never spoke to them; of course not.'

'Then you must be strongly mesmeric, and your will acted upon
theirs, if you are to take credit for any part in the affair,'
continued his pitiless wife.

'I really can't say. It's no use looking back to what I said or did.
I'm very well satisfied with it, and that's enough, and I mean to
show them how much I'm pleased. I shall give Clare something towards
her rigging out, and they shall have a breakfast at Ashcombe
Manor-house. I'll write to Preston about it. When did you say they
were to be married?'

'I think they'd better wait till Christmas, and I have told them so.
It would amuse the children, going over to Ashcombe for the wedding;
and if it's bad weather during the holidays I'm always afraid of
their finding it dull at the Towers. It's very different if it's a
good frost, and they can go out skating and sledging in the park.
But these last two years it has been so wet for them, poor dears!'

'And will the other poor dears be content to wait to make a holiday
for your grandchildren? "To make a Roman holiday." Pope, or somebody
else, had a line of poetry like that. "To make a Roman
holiday,"'--he repeated, pleased with his unusual aptitude at
quotation.

'It's Byron, and it's nothing to do with the subject in hand. I'm
surprised at your lordship's quoting Byron,--he was a very immoral
poet.'

'I saw him take his oaths in the House of Lords,' said Lord Cumnor,
apologetically.

'Well! the less said about him the better,' said Lady Cumnor. 'I
have told Clare that she had better not think of being married
before Christmas; and it won't do for her to give up her school in a
hurry either.'

But Clare did not intend to wait till Christmas; and for this once
she carried her point against the will of the countess, and without
many words, or any open opposition. She had a harder task in setting
aside Mr. Gibson's desire to have Cynthia over for the wedding, even
if she went back to her school at Boulogne directly after the
ceremony. At first she had said that it would be delightful, a
charming plan; only she feared that she must give up her own wishes
to have her child near her at such a time, on account of the expense
of the double journey.

But Mr. Gibson, economical as he was in his habitual expenditure, had
a really generous heart. He had already shown it, in entirely
relinquishing his future wife's life-interest in the very small
property the late Mr. Kirkpatrick had left, in favour of Cynthia;
while he arranged that she should come to his home as a daughter as
soon as she left the school she was at. The life-interest was about
thirty pounds a year. Now he gave Mrs. Kirkpatrick three five-pound
notes, saying that he hoped they would do away with the objections
to Cynthia's coming over to the wedding; and at the time Mrs
Kirkpatrick felt as if they would, and caught the reflection of his
strong wish, and fancied it was her own. If the letter could have
been written and the money sent off that day while the reflected
glow of affection lasted, Cynthia would have been bridesmaid to her
mother. But a hundred little interruptions came in the way of
letter-writing; and by the next day maternal love had diminished;
and the value affixed to the money had increased: money had been so
much needed, so hardly earned in Mrs. Kirkpatrick's life; while the
perhaps necessary separation of mother and child had lessened the
amount of affection the former had to bestow. So she persuaded
herself, afresh, that it would be unwise to disturb Cynthia at her
studies; to interrupt the fulfilment of her duties just after the
~semestre~ had begun afresh; and she wrote a letter to Madame
Lefevre so well imbued with this persuasion, that an answer which
was almost an echo of her words was returned, the sense of which
being conveyed to Mr. Gibson, who was no great French scholar,
settled the vexed question, to his moderate but unfeigned regret.
But the fifteen pounds were not returned. Indeed, not merely that
sum, but a great part of the hundred which Lord Cumnor had given her
for her trousseau, was required to pay off debts at Ashcombe; for
the school had been anything but flourishing since Mrs. Kirkpatrick
had had it. It was really very much to her credit that she preferred
clearing herself from debt to purchasing wedding finery. But it was
one of the few points to be respected in Mrs. Kirkpatrick that she
had always been careful in payment to the shops where she dealt; it
was a little sense of duty cropping out. Whatever other faults might
arise from her superficial and flimsy character, she was always
uneasy till she was out of debt. Yet she had no scruple in
appropriating her future husband's money to her own use, when it was
decided that it was not to be employed as he intended. What new
articles she bought for herself, were all such as would make a show,
and an impression upon the ladies of Hollingford. She argued with
herself that linen, and all underclothing, would never be seen,
while she knew that every gown she had, would give rise to much
discussion and would be counted up in the little town.

So her stock of 'underclothing was very small, and scarcely any of
it new; but it was made of dainty material, and was finely mended up
by her deft fingers, many a night long after her pupils were in bed;
inwardly resolving all the time she sewed, that hereafter some one
else should do her plain-work. Indeed, many a little circumstance of
former subjection to the will of others rose up before her during
these quiet hours, as an endurance or a suffering never to occur
again. So apt are people to look forward to a different kind of life
from that to which they have been accustomed, as being free from
care and trial! She recollected how, one time during this very
summer at the Towers, after she was engaged to Mr. Gibson, when she
had taken above an hour to arrange her hair in some new mode
carefully studied from Mrs. Bradley's fashion-book--after all, when
she came down, looking her very best, as she thought, and ready for
her lover, Lady Cumnor had sent her back again to her room, just as
if she had been a little child, to do her hair over again, and not
to make such a figure of fun of herself! Another time she had been
sent to change her gown for one in her opinion far less becoming,
but which suited Lady Cumnor's taste better. These were little
things; but they were late samples of what in different shapes she
had had to endure for many years; and her liking for Mr. Gibson grew
in proportion to her sense of the evils from which he was going to
serve as a means of escape. After all, that interval of hope and
plain-sewing, intermixed though it was by tuition, was not
disagreeable. Her wedding-dress was secure. Her former pupils at the
Towers were going to present her with that; they were to dress her
from head to foot on the auspicious day. Lord Cumnor, as has been
said, had given her a hundred pounds for her trousseau, and had sent
Mr. Preston a ~carte-blanche~ order for the wedding-breakfast in the
old hall in Ashcombe Manor-house. Lady Cumnor--a little put out by
the marriage not being deferred till her grandchildren's Christmas
holidays--had nevertheless given Mrs. Kirkpatrick an excellent
English-made watch and chain; more clumsy but more serviceable than
the little foreign elegance that had hung at her side so long, and
misled her so often.

Her preparations were thus in a very considerable state of
forwardness, while Mr. Gibson had done nothing as yet towards any new
arrangement or decoration of his house for his intended bride. He
knew he ought to do something. But what? Where to begin, when so
much was out of order, and he had so little time for
superintendence? At length he came to the wise decision of asking
one of the Miss Brownings to take the trouble of preparing all that
was immediately requisite in his house, for old friendship's sake;
and resolved to leave all the more ornamental decorations that he
proposed, to the taste of his future wife. But before making his
request to the Miss Brownings he had to tell them of his engagement,
which had hitherto been kept a secret from the townspeople, who had
set down his frequent visits at the Towers to the score of the
countess's health. He felt how he should have laughed in his sleeve
at any middle-aged widower who came to him with a confession of the
kind he had now to make to the Miss Brownings, and disliked the idea
of the necessary call: but it was to be done, so one evening he went
in 'promiscuous,' as they called it, and told them his story. At the
end of the first chapter--that is to say, at the end of the story of
Mr. Coxe's calf-love, Miss Browning held up her hands in surprise.

'To think of Molly, as I have held in long-clothes, coming to have a
lover! Well, to be sure! Sister Phoebe--' (she was just coming into
the room), 'here's a piece of news! Molly Gibson has got a lover!
One may almost say she's had an offer! Mr. Gibson, may not one?--and
she's but sixteen!'

'Seventeen, sister,' said Miss Phoebe, who piqued herself on knowing
all about dear Mr. Gibson's domestic affairs. 'Seventeen, the 22nd of
last June.'

'Well, have it your own way. Seventeen, if you like to call her so!'
said Miss Browning, impatiently. 'The fact is still the same--she's
got a lover; and it seems to me she was in long-clothes only
yesterday.'

'I'm sure I hope her course of true love will run smooth,' said Miss
Phoebe.

Now Mr. Gibson came in; for his story was not half told, and he did
not want them to run away too far with the idea of Molly's
love-affair.

'Molly knows nothing about it. I haven't even named it to any one
but you two, and to one other friend. I trounced Coxe well, and did
my best to keep his attachment--as he calls it--in bounds. But I was
sadly puzzled what to do about Molly. Miss Eyre was away, and I
couldn't leave them in the house together without any older woman.'

'Oh, Mr. Gibson! why did you not send her to us?' broke in Miss
Browning. 'We would have done anything in our power for you; for
your sake, as well as her poor dear mother's.'

'Thank you. I know you would, but it wouldn't have done to have had
her in Hollingford, just at the time of Coxe's effervescence. He's
better now. His appetite has come back with double force, after the
fasting he thought it right to exhibit. He had three helpings of
blackcurrant dumpling yesterday.'

'I am sure you are most liberal, Mr. Gibson. Three helpings! And, I
daresay, butcher's meat in proportion?'

'Oh! I only named it because, with such very young men, it's
generally see-saw between appetite and love, and I thought the third
helping a very good sign. But still, you know, what has happened
once, may happen again.'

'I don't know. Phoebe had an offer of marriage once--' said Miss
Browning.

'Hush! sister. It might hurt his feelings to have it spoken about.'

'Nonsense, child! It's five-and-twenty years ago; and his eldest
daughter is married herself.'

'I own he has not been constant,' pleaded Miss Phoebe, in her
tender, piping voice. 'All men are not--like you, Mr
Gibson--faithful to the memory of their first love.'

Mr. Gibson winced. Jeanie was his first love; but her name had never
been breathed in Hollingford. His wife--good, pretty, sensible, and
beloved as she had been--was not his second; no, nor his third love.
And now he was come to make a confidence about his second marriage.

'Well, well,' said he; 'at any rate, I thought I must do something
to protect Molly from such affairs while she was so young, and
before I had given my sanction. Miss Eyre's little nephew fell ill
of scarlet fever--'

'Ah! by-the-by, how careless of me not to inquire. How is the poor
little fellow?'

'Worse--better. It doesn't signify to what I've got to say now; the
fact was, Miss Eyre couldn't come back to my house for some time,
and I cannot leave Molly altogether at Hamley.'

'Ah! I see now, why there was that sudden visit to Hamley. Upon my
word, it's quite a romance.'

'I do like hearing of a love-affair,' murmured Miss Phoebe.

'Then if you'll let me get on with my story, you shall hear of
mine,' said Mr. Gibson, quite beyond his patience with their constant
interruptions.

'Yours!' said Miss Phoebe, faintly.

'Bless us and save us!' said Miss Browning, with less sentiment in
her tone; 'what next?'

'My marriage, I hope,' said Mr. Gibson, choosing to take her
expression of intense surprise literally. 'And that's what I came to
speak to you about.'

A little hope darted up in Miss Phoebe's breast. She had often said
to her sister, in the confidence of curling-time (ladies wore curls
in those days), 'that the only man who could ever bring her to think
of matrimony was Mr. Gibson; but that if he ever proposed, she should
feel bound to accept him, for poor dear Mary's sake;' never
explaining what exact style of satisfaction she imagined she should
give to her dead friend by marrying her late husband. Phoebe played
nervously with the strings of her black silk apron. Like the Caliph
in the Eastern story, a whole lifetime of possibilities passed
through her mind in an instant, of which possibilities the question
of questions was, Could she leave her sister? Attend, Phoebe, to the
present moment, and listen to what is being said before you distress
yourself with a perplexity which will never arise.

'Of course it has been an anxious thing for me to decide who I
should ask to be the mistress of my family, the mother of my girl;
but I think I've decided rightly at last. The lady I have chosen--'

'Tell us at once who she is, there's a good man,' said
straightforward Miss Browning.

'Mrs. Kirkpatrick,' said the bridegroom elect.

'What! the governess at the Towers, that the countess makes so much
of?'

'Yes; she is much valued by them--and deservedly so. She keeps a
school now at Ashcombe, and is accustomed to housekeeping. She has
brought up the young ladies at the Towers, and has a daughter of her
own, therefore it is probable she will have a kind, motherly feeling
towards Molly.'

'She's a very elegant-looking woman,' said Miss Phoebe, feeling it
incumbent upon her to say something laudatory, by way of concealing
the thoughts that had just been passing through her mind. 'I've seen
her in the carriage, riding backwards with the countess; a very
pretty woman, I should say.'

'Nonsense, sister,' said Miss Browning. 'What has her elegance or
prettiness to do with the affair? Did you ever know a widower marry
again for such trifles as those? It's always from a sense of duty of
one kind or another--isn't it, Mr. Gibson? They want a housekeeper;
or they want a mother for their children; or they think their last
wife would have liked it.'

Perhaps the thought had passed through the elder sister's mind that
Phoebe might have been chosen for there was a sharp acrimony in her
tone; not unfamiliar to Mr. Gibson, but with which he did not choose
to cope at this present moment.

'You must have it your own way, Miss Browning. Settle my motives for
me. I don't pretend to be quite clear about them myself. But I am
clear in wishing heartily to keep my old friends, and for them to
love my future wife for my sake. I don't know any two women in the
world, except Molly and Mrs. Kirkpatrick, I regard as much as I do
you. Besides, I want to ask you if you will let Molly come and stay
with you till after my marriage?'

'You might have asked us before you asked Madam Hamley,' said Miss
Browning, only half mollified. 'We are your old friends; and we were
her mother's friends, too; though we are not county folk.'

'That's unjust,' said Mr. Gibson. 'And you know it is.'

'I don't know. You are always with Lord Hollingford, when you can
get at him, much more than you ever are with Mr. Goodenough, or Mr
Smith. And you are always going over to Hamley.'

Miss Browning was not one to give in all at once.

'I seek Lord Hollingford as I should seek such a man, whatever his
rank or position might be: usher to a school, carpenter, shoemaker,
if it were possible for them to have had a similar character of mind
developed by similar advantages. Mr. Goodenough is a very clever
attorney, with strong local interests and not a thought beyond.'

'Well, well, don't go on arguing, it always gives me a headache, as
Phoebe knows. I didn't mean what I said, that's enough, isn't it?
I'll retract anything sooner than be reasoned with. Where were we
before you began your arguments?'

'About dear little Molly coming to pay us a visit,' said Miss
Phoebe.

'I should have asked you at first, only Coxe was so rampant with his
love. I didn't know what he might do, or how troublesome he might be
both to Molly and you. But he has cooled down now. Absence has had a
very tranquillizing effect, and I think Molly may be in the same
town with him, without any consequences beyond a few sighs every
time she's brought to his mind by meeting her. And I've got another
favour to ask of you, so you see it would never do for me to argue
with you, Miss Browning, when I ought to be a humble suppliant.
Something must be done to the house to make it all ready for the
future Mrs. Gibson. It wants painting and papering shamefully, and I
should think some new furniture, but I'm sure I don't know what.
Would you be so very kind as to look over the place, and see how far
a hundred pounds will go? The dining-room walls must be painted;
we'll keep the drawing-room paper for her choice, and I've a little
spare money for that room for her to lay out; but all the rest of
the house I'll leave to you, if you'll only be kind enough to help
an old friend.'

This was a commission which exactly gratified Miss Browning's love
of power. The disposal of money involved patronage of tradespeople,
such as she had exercised in her father's lifetime, but had had very
little chance of showing since his death. Her usual good-humour was
quite restored by this proof of confidence in her taste and economy,
while Miss Phoebe's imagination dwelt rather on the pleasure of a
visit from Molly.

CHAPTER XIII

MOLLY GIBSON'S NEW FRIENDS

Time was speeding on; it was now the middle of August,--if anything
was to be done to the house, it must be done at once. Indeed, in
several ways Mr. Gibson's arrangements with Miss Browning had not
been made too soon. The squire had heard that Osborne might probably
return home for a few days before going abroad; and, though the
growing intimacy between Roger and Molly did not alarm him in the
least, yet he was possessed by a very hearty panic lest the heir
might take a fancy to the surgeon's daughter; and he was in such a
fidget for her to leave the house before Osborne came home, that his
wife lived in constant terror lest he should make it too obvious to
their visitor.

Every young girl of seventeen or so, who is at all thoughtful, is
very apt to make a Pope out of the first person who presents to her
a new or larger system of duty than that by which she has been
unconsciously guided hitherto. Such a Pope was Roger to Molly; she
looked to his opinion, to his authority on almost every subject, yet
he had only said one or two things in a terse manner which gave them
the force of precepts--stable guides to her conduct, and had shown
the natural superiority in wisdom and knowledge which is sure to
exist between a highly educated young man of no common intelligence,
and an ignorant girl of seventeen, who yet was well capable of
appreciation. Still, although they were drawn together in this very
pleasant relationship, each was imagining some one very different
for the future owner of their whole heart--their highest and
completest love. Roger looked to find a grand woman, his equal, and
his empress; beautiful in person, serene in wisdom, ready for
counsel, as was Egeria.' Molly's little wavering maiden fancy dwelt
on the unseen Osborne, who was now a troubadour, and now a knight,
such as he wrote about in one of his own poems; some one like
Osborne, perhaps, rather than Osborne himself, for she shrank from
giving a personal form and name to the hero that was to be. The
squire was not unwise in wishing her well out of the house before
Osborne came home, if he was considering her peace of mind. Yet,
when she went away from the hall he missed her constantly; it had
been so pleasant to have her there daily fulfilling all the pretty
offices of a daughter; cheering the meals, so often ~tete-a-tete~
betwixt him and Roger, with her innocent wise questions, her
lively interest in their talk, her merry replies to his banter.

And Roger missed her too. Sometimes her remarks had probed into his
mind, and excited him to the deep thought in which he delighted; at
other times he had felt himself of real help to her in her hours of
need, and in making her take an interest in books, which treated of
higher things than the continual fiction and poetry which she had
hitherto read. He felt something like an affectionate tutor who was
suddenly deprived of his most promising pupil; he wondered how she
would go on without him; whether she would be puzzled and
disheartened by the books he had lent her to read; how she and her
stepmother would get along together? She occupied his thoughts a
good deal those first few days after she left the hall. Mrs. Hamley
regretted her more, and longer than did the other two. She had given
her the place of a daughter in her heart; and now she missed the
sweet feminine companionship, the playful caresses, the
never-ceasing attentions; the very need of sympathy in her sorrows,
that Molly had shown so openly from time to time; all these things
had extremely endeared her to the tenderhearted Mrs. Hamley.

Molly, too, felt the change of atmosphere keenly; and she blamed
herself for so feeling even more keenly still. But she could not
help having a sense of refinement, which had made her appreciate the
whole manner of being at the Hall. By her dear old friends the Miss
Brownings she was petted and caressed so much that she became
ashamed of noticing the coarser and louder tones in which they
spoke, the provincialism of their pronunciation, the absence of
interest in things, and their greediness of details about persons.
They asked her questions which she was puzzled enough to answer
about her future stepmother; her loyalty to her father forbidding
her to reply fully and truthfully. She was always glad when they
began to make inquiries as to every possible affair at the Hall. She
had been so happy there; she liked them all, down to the very dogs,
so thoroughly, that it was easy work replying: she did not mind
telling them everything, even to the style of Mrs. Hamley's invalid
dress; nor what wine the squire drank at dinner. Indeed, talking
about these things helped her to recall the happiest time in her
life. But one evening, as they were all sitting together after tea
in the little upstairs drawing-room, looking into the High
Street--Molly discoursing away on the various pleasures of Hamley
Hall, and just then telling of all Roger's wisdom in natural
science, and some of the curiosities he had shown her, she was
suddenly pulled up by this little speech,--

'You seem to have seen a great deal of Mr. Roger, Molly!' said Miss
Browning, in a way intended to convey a great deal of meaning to her
sister and none at all to Molly. But,--

The man recovered of the bite;
The dog it was that died.'

Molly was perfectly aware of Miss Browning's emphatic tone, though
at first she was perplexed as to its cause; while Miss Phoebe was
just then too much absorbed in knitting the heel of her stocking to
be fully alive to her sister's nods and winks.

'Yes; he was very kind to me,' said Molly, slowly, pondering over
Miss Browning's manner, and unwilling to say more until she had
satisfied herself to what the question tended.

'I dare say you will soon be going to Hamley Hall again? He's not
the eldest son, you know, Phoebe! Don't make my head ache with
your eternal "eighteen, nineteen," but attend to the conversation.
Molly is telling us how much she saw of Mr. Roger, and how kind he
was to her. I've always heard he was a very nice young man, my dear.
Tell us some more about him! Now, Phoebe, attend! How was he kind to
you, Molly?'

'Oh, he told me what books to read; and one day he made me notice
how many bees I saw--'

'Bees, child! What do you mean? Either you or he must have been
crazy!'

'No, not at all. There are more than two hundred kinds of bees in
England, and he wanted me to notice the difference between them and
flies. Miss Browning, I can't help seeing what you fancy,' said
Molly, as red as fire, 'but it is very wrong; it is all a mistake. I
won't speak another word about Mr. Roger or Hamley at all, if it puts
such silly notions into your head.'

'Highty-tighty! Here's a young lady to be lecturing her elders!
Silly notions, indeed! They are in your head, it seems. And let me
tell you, Molly, you are too young to let your mind be running on
lovers.'

Molly had been once or twice called saucy and impertinent, and
certainly a little sauciness came out now.

'I never said what the "silly notion" was, Miss Browning; did I now,
Miss Phoebe? Don't you see, dear Miss Phoebe, it is all her own
interpretation, and according to her own fancy, this foolish talk
about lovers?'

Molly was flaming with indignation; but she had appealed to the
wrong person for justice. Miss Phoebe tried to make peace after the
fashion of weak-minded persons, who would cover over the unpleasant
sight of a sore, instead of trying to heal it.

'I'm sure I don't know anything about it, my dear. It seems to me
that what Sally was saying was very true--very true indeed; and I
think, love, you misunderstood her; or, perhaps, she misunderstood
you; or I may be misunderstanding it altogether; so we'd better not
talk any more about it. What price did you say you were going to
give for the drugget in Mr. Gibson's dining-room, sister?'

So Miss Browning and Molly went on till evening, each chafed and
angry with the other. They wished each other good-night, going
through the usual forms in the coolest manner possible. Molly went
up to her little bedroom, clean and neat as a bedroom could be, with
draperies of small delicate patchwork--bed-curtains,
window-curtains, and counter-pane; a japanned ~toilette~-table, full
of little boxes, with a small looking-glass affixed to it, that
distorted every face that was so unwise as to look in it. This room
had been to the child one of the most dainty and luxurious places
ever seen, in comparison with her own bare, white-dimity bedroom;
and now she was sleeping in it, as a guest, and all the quaint
adornments she had once peeped at as a great favour, as they were
carefully wrapped up in cap-paper, were set out for her use. And yet
how little she had deserved this hospitable care; how impertinent
she had been; how cross she had felt ever since! She was crying
tears of penitence and youthful misery when there came a low tap to
the door. Molly opened it, and there stood Miss Browning, in a
wonderful erection of a nightcap, and scantily attired in a coloured
calico jacket over her scrimpy and short white petticoat.

'I was afraid you were asleep, child,' said she, coming in and
shutting the door. 'But I wanted to say to you we've got wrong
to-day, somehow; and I think it was perhaps my doing. It's as well
Phoebe shouldn't know, for she thinks me perfect; and when there's
only two of us, we get along better if one of us thinks the other
can do no wrong. But I rather think I was a little cross. We'll not
say any more about it, Molly; only we'll go to sleep friends,--and
friends we'll always be, child, won't we? Now give me a kiss, and
don't cry and swell your eyes up;--and put out your candle
carefully.'

'I was wrong--it was my fault,' said Molly, kissing her.

'Fiddlestick-ends! Don't contradict me! I say it was my fault, and I
won't hear another word about it.'

The next day Molly went with Miss Browning to see the changes going
on in her father's house. To her they were but dismal improvements.
The faint grey of the dining-room walls, which had harmonized well
enough with the deep crimson of the moreen curtains, and which when
well cleaned looked thinly coated rather than dirty, was now
exchanged for a pink salmon-colour of a very glowing hue; and the
new curtains were of that pale sea-green just coming into fashion.
'Very bright and pretty,' Miss Browning called it; and in the first
renewing of their love Molly could not bear to contradict her. She
could only hope that the green and brown drugget would tone down the
brightness and prettiness. There was scaffolding here, scaffolding
there, and Betty scolding everywhere.

'Come up now, and see your papa's bedroom. He's sleeping upstairs in
yours, that everything may be done up afresh in his.'

Molly could just remember, in faint clear lines of distinctness, the
being taken into this very room to bid farewell to her dying mother.
She could see the white linen, the white muslin, surrounding the
pale, wan wistful face, with the large, longing eyes, yearning for
one more touch of the little soft warm child, whom she was too
feeble to clasp in her arms, already growing numb in death. Many a
time when Molly had been in this room since that sad day, had she
seen in vivid fancy that same wan wistful face lying on the pillow,
the outline of the form beneath the clothes; and the girl had not
shrunk from such visions, but rather cherished them, as preserving
to her the remembrance of her mother's outward semblance. Her eyes
were full of tears, as she followed Miss Browning into this room to
see it under its new aspect. Nearly everything was changed--the
position of the bed and the colour of the furniture; there was a
grand ~toilette~-table now, with a glass upon it, instead of the
primitive substitute of the top of a chest of drawers, with a mirror
above upon the wall, sloping downwards; these latter things had
served her mother during her short married life.

'You see we must have all in order for a lady who has passed so much
of her time in the countess's mansion,' said Miss Browning, who was
now quite reconciled to the marriage, thanks to the pleasant
employment of furnishing that had devolved upon her in consequence.
'Cromer, the upholsterer, wanted to persuade me to have a sofa and a
writing-table. These men will say anything is the fashion, if they
want to sell an article. I said, "No, no, Cromer: bedrooms are for
sleeping in, and sitting-rooms are for sitting in. Keep everything
to its right purpose, and don't try and delude me into nonsense."
Why, my mother would have given us a fine scolding if she had ever
caught us in our bedrooms in the daytime. We kept our outdoor things
in a closet downstairs; and there was a very tidy place for washing
our hands, which is as much as one wants in the day-time. Stuffing
up a bedroom with sofas and tables! I never heard of such a thing.
Besides, a hundred pounds won't last for ever. I shan't be able to
do anything for your room, Molly!'

'I'm right down glad of it,' said Molly. 'Nearly everything in it
was what mamma had when she lived with my great-uncle. I wouldn't
have had it changed for the world; I am so fond of it.'

'Well, there's no danger of it, now the money is run out. By the
way, Molly, who's to buy you a bridesmaid's dress?'

'I don't know,' said Molly;'I suppose I am to be a bridesmaid; but
no one has spoken to me about my dress.'

'Then I shall ask your papa.'

'Please, don't. He must have to spend a great deal of money just
now. Besides, I would rather not be at the wedding, if they'll let
me stay away.'

'Nonsense, child. Why, all the town would be talking of it. You must
go, and you must be well dressed, for your father's sake.'

But Mr. Gibson had thought of Molly's dress, although he had said
nothing about it to her. He had commissioned his future wife to get
her what was requisite; and presently a very smart dressmaker came
over from the county-town to try on a dress, which was both so
simple and so elegant as at once to charm Molly. When it came home
all ready to put on, Molly had a private dressing-up for the Miss
Brownings' benefit; and she was almost startled when she looked into
the glass, and saw the improvement in her appearance. 'I wonder if
I'm pretty,' thought she. 'I almost think I am--in this kind of
dress I mean, of course. Betty would say, "Fine feathers make fine
birds."'

When she went downstairs in her bridal attire, and with shy blushes
presented herself for inspection, she was greeted with a burst of
admiration.

'Well, upon my word! I shouldn't have known you.' ('Fine feathers,'
thought Molly, and checked her rising vanity.)

'You are really beautiful--isn't she, sister?' said Miss Phoebe.
'Why, my dear, if you were always dressed, you would be prettier
than your dear mamma, whom we always reckoned so very personable.'

'You're not a bit like her. You favour your father, and white always
sets off a brown complexion.'

'But isn't she beautiful?' persevered Miss Phoebe.

'Well! and if she is, Providence made her, and not she herself.
Besides, the dressmaker must go shares. What a fine India muslin it
is! it'll have cost a pretty penny!'

Mr. Gibson and Molly drove over to Ashcombe, the night before the
wedding, in the one yellow post-chaise that Hollingford possessed.
They were to be Mr. Preston's, or, rather, my lord's, guests at the
Manor-house. The Manor-house came up to its name, and delighted
Molly at first sight. It was built of stone, had many gables and
mullioned windows, and was covered over with Virginian creeper and
late-blowing roses. Molly did not know Mr. Preston, who stood in the
doorway to greet her father. She took standing with him as a young
lady at once, and it was the first time she had met with the kind of
behaviour--half complimentary, half flirting--which some men think
it necessary to assume with every woman under five-and-twenty. Mr
Preston was very handsome, and knew it. He was a fair man, with
light-brown hair and whiskers; grey, roving, well-shaped eyes, with
lashes darker than his hair; and a figure rendered easy and supple
by the athletic exercises in which his excellence was famous, and
which had procured him admission into much higher society than he
was otherwise entitled to enter. He was a capital cricketer; was so
good a shot, that any house desirous of reputation for its bags on
the 12th or the 1st, was glad to have him for a guest. He taught
young ladies to play billiards on a wet day, or went in for the game
in serious earnest when required, He knew half the private
theatrical plays off by heart, and was invaluable in arranging
impromptu charades and tableaux. He had his own private reasons for
wishing to get up a flirtation with Molly just at this time; he had
amused himself so much with the widow when she first came to
Ashcombe, that he fancied that the sight of him, standing by her
less polished, less handsome, middle-aged husband, might be too much
of a contrast to be agreeable. Besides, he had really a strong
passion for some one else; some one who would be absent; and that
passion it was necessary for him to conceal. So that, altogether, he
had resolved, even had 'the little Gibson-girl' (as he called her)
been less attractive than she was, to devote himself to her for the
next sixteen hours.

They were taken by their host into a wainscoted parlour, where a
wood fire crackled and burnt, and the crimson curtains shut out the
waning day and the outer chill. Here the table was laid for dinner;
snowy table-linen, bright silver, clear sparkling glass, wine and an
autumnal dessert on the sideboard. Yet Mr. Preston kept apologizing
to Molly for the rudeness of his bachelor home, for the smallness of
the room, the great dining-room being already appropriated by his
housekeeper, in preparation for the morrow's breakfast. And then he
rang for a servant to show Molly to her room. She was taken into a
most comfortable chamber. a wood fire on the hearth, candles lighted
on the ~toilette~-table, dark woollen curtains surrounding a
snow-white bed, great vases of china standing here and there.

'This is my Lady Harriet's room when her ladyship comes to the
Manor-house with my lord the earl,' said the housemaid, striking out
thousands of brilliant sparks by a well-directed blow at a
smouldering log. 'Shall I help you to dress, miss? I always helps
her ladyship.'

Molly, quite aware of the fact that she had but her white muslin
gown for the wedding besides that she had on, dismissed the good
woman, and was thankful to be left to herself.

'Dinner' was it called? Why it was nearly eight o'clock; and
preparations for bed seemed a more natural employment than dressing
at this hour of night. All the dressing she could manage was the
placing of a red damask rose or two in the band of her grey stuff
gown, there being a great nosegay of choice autumnal flowers on the
~toilette~-table. She did try the effect of another crimson rose in
her black hair, just above her ear; it was very pretty, but too
coquettish, and so she put it back again. The dark-oak panels and
wainscoting of the whole house seemed to glow in warm light; there
were so many fires in different rooms, in the hall, and even one on
the landing of the staircase. Mr. Preston must have heard her step,
for he met her in the hall, and led her into a small drawing-room,
with closed folding-doors on one side, opening into the larger
drawing-room, as he told her. This room into which she entered
reminded her a little of Hamley--yellow-satin upholstery of seventy
or a hundred years ago, all delicately kept and scrupulously clean;
great Indian cabinets, and china jars, emitting spicy odours; a
large blazing fire, before which her father stood in his morning
dress, grave and thoughtful, as he had been all day.

'This room is that which Lady Harriet uses when she comes here with
her father for a day or two,' said Mr. Preston. And Molly tried to
save her father by being ready to talk herself.

'Does she often come here?'

'Not often. But I fancy she likes being here when she does. Perhaps
she finds it an agreeable change after the more formal life she
leads at the Towers. '

'I should think it was a very pleasant house to stay at,' said
Molly, remembering the look of warm comfort that pervaded it. But a
little to her dismay Mr. Preston seemed to take it as a compliment to
himself.

'I was afraid a young lady like you might perceive all the
incongruities of a bachelor's home. I am very much obliged to you,
Miss Gibson. In general I live pretty much in the room in which we
shall dine; and I have a sort of agent's office in which I keep
books and papers, and receive callers on business.'

Then they went in to dinner. Molly thought everything that was
served was delicious, and cooked to the point of perfection; but
they did not seem to satisfy Mr. Preston, who apologized to his
guests several times for the bad cooking of this dish, or the
omission of a particular sauce to that; always referring to
bachelor's housekeeping, bachelor's this and bachelor's that, till
Molly grew quite impatient at the word. Her father's depression,
which was still continuing and rendering him very silent, made her
uneasy; yet she wished to conceal it from Mr. Preston; and so she
talked away, trying to obviate the sort of personal bearing which
their host would give to everything. She did not know when to leave
the gentlemen, but her father made a sign to her; and she was
conducted back to the yellow drawing-room by Mr. Preston, who made
many apologies for leaving her there alone. She enjoyed herself
extremely, however, feeling at liberty to prowl about, and examine
all the curiosities the room contained. Among other things was a
Louis Quinze cabinet with lovely miniatures in enamel let into the
fine woodwork. She carried a candle to it, and was looking intently
at these faces when her father and Mr. Preston came in. Her father
looked still careworn and anxious; he came up and patted her on the
back, looked at what she was looking at, and then went off to
silence and the fire. Mr. Preston took the candle out of her hand,
and threw himself into her interests with an air of ready gallantry.

'That is said to be Mademoiselle de St Quentin, a great beauty at
the French Court. This is Madame du Barri. Do you see any likeness
in Mademoiselle de St Quentin to any one you know?' He had lowered
his voice a little as he asked this question.

'No!' said Molly, looking at it again. 'I never saw any one half so
beautiful.'

'But don't you see a likeness--in the eyes particularly?' he asked
again, with some impatience.

Molly tried hard to find out a resemblance, and was again
unsuccessful.

'It constantly reminds me of--of Miss Kirkpatrick.'

'Does it?' said Molly, eagerly. 'Oh! I am so glad--I've never seen
her, so of course I couldn't find out the likeness. You know her,
then, do you? Please tell me all about her.'

He hesitated a moment before speaking. He smiled a little before
replying.

'She's very beautiful; that of course is understood when I say that
this miniature does not come up to her for beauty.'

'And besides?--Go on, please.'

'What do you mean by "besides"?'

'Oh! I suppose she's very clever and accomplished?'

That was not in the least what Molly wanted to ask; but it was
difficult to word the vague vastness of her unspoken inquiry.

'She is clever naturally; she has picked up accomplishments. But she
has such a charm about her, one forgets what she herself is in the
halo that surrounds her. You ask me all this, Miss Gibson, and I
answer truthfully; or else I should not entertain one young lady
with my enthusiastic praises of another.'

'I don't see why not,' said Molly. 'Besides, if you wouldn't do it
in general, I think you ought to do it in my case; for you, perhaps,
don't know, but she is coming to live with us when she leaves
school, and we are very nearly the same age; so it will be almost
like having a sister.'

'She is to live with you, is she?' said Mr. Preston, to whom this
intelligence was news. 'And when is she to leave school? I thought
she would surely have been at this wedding; but I was told she was
not to come. When is she to leave school?'

'I think it is to be at Easter. You know she's at Boulogne, and it's
a long journey for her to come alone; or else papa wished for her to
be at the marriage very much indeed.'

'And her mother prevented it?--I understand.'

'No, it wasn't her mother; it was the French schoolmistress, who
didn't think it desirable.'

'It comes to pretty much the same thing. And she's to return and
live with you after Easter?'

'I believe so. Is she a grave or a merry person?'

'Never very grave, as far as I have seen of her. Sparkling would be
the word for her, I think. Do you ever write to her? If you do, pray
remember me to her, and tell her how we have been talking about
her--you and I.'

'I never write to her,' said Molly, rather shortly.

Tea came in; and after that they all went to bed, Molly heard her
father exclaim at the fire in his bedroom, and Mr. Preston's reply,--

'I pique myself on my keen relish for all creature comforts, and
also on my power of doing without them, if need be. My lord's woods
are ample, and I indulge myself with a fire in my bedroom for nine
months in the year; yet I could travel in Iceland without wincing
from the cold.'

CHAPTER XIV

MOLLY FINDS HERSELF PATRONIZED

The wedding went off much as such affairs do. Lord Cumnor and Lady
Harriet drove over from the Towers, so the hour for the ceremony was
as late as possible. Lord Cumnor came over to officiate as the
bride's father, and was in more open glee than either bride or
bridegroom, or any one else. Lady Harriet came as a sort of amateur
bridesmaid, to 'share Molly's duties,' as she called it. They went
from the Manor-house in two carriages to the church in the park, Mr
Preston and Mr. Gibson in one, and Molly, to her dismay, shut up with
Lord Cumnor and Lady Harriet in the other. Lady Harriet's gown of
white muslin had seen one or two garden-parties, and was not in the
freshest order; it had been rather a freak of the young lady's at
the last moment. She was very merry, and very much inclined to talk
to Molly, by way of finding out what sort of a little personage
Clare was to have for her future daughter. She began,--

'We mustn't crush this pretty muslin dress of yours. Put it over
papa's knee; he doesn't mind it in the least.'

'What, my dear, a white dress!--no, to be sure not. I rather like
it. Besides, going to a wedding, who minds anything? It would be
different if we were going to a funeral.'

Molly conscientiously strove to find out the meaning of this speech;
but before she had done so, Lady Harriet spoke again, going to the
point, as she always piqued herself on doing.

'I daresay it's something of a trial to you, this second marriage of
your father's; but you'll find Clare the most amiable of women. She
always let me have my own way, and I've no doubt she'll let you have
yours.'

'I mean to try and like her,' said Molly, in a low voice, trying
hard to keep down the tears that would keep rising to her eyes this
morning. 'I've seen very little of her yet.'

'Why, it's the very best thing for you that could have happened, my
dear,' said Lord Cumnor. 'You're growing up into a young lady--and
a very pretty young lady, too, if you'll allow an old man to say
so--and who so proper as your father's wife to bring you out, and
show you off, and take you to balls, and that kind of thing? I
always said this match that is going to come off to-day was the most
suitable thing I ever knew; and it's even a better thing for you
than for the people themselves.'

'Poor child!' said Lady Harriet, who had caught a sight of Molly's
troubled face, 'the thought of balls is too much for her just now;
but you'll like having Cynthia Kirkpatrick for a companion, shan't
you, dear?'

'Very much,' said Molly, cheering up a little. 'Do you know her?'

'Oh, I've seen her over and over again when she was a little girl,
and once or twice since. She's the prettiest creature that you ever
saw; and with eyes that mean mischief, if I'm not mistaken. But
Clare kept her spirit under pretty well when she was staying with
us,--afraid of her being troublesome, I fancy.'

Before Molly could shape her next question, they were at the church;
and she and Lady Harriet went into a pew near the door to wait for
the bride, in whose train they were to proceed to the altar. The
earl drove on alone to fetch her from her own house, not a quarter
of a mile distant. It was pleasant to her to be led to the hymeneal
altar by a belted earl, and pleasant to have his daughter as a
volunteered bridesmaid. Mrs. Kirkpatrick in this flush of small
gratifications, and on the brink of matrimony with a man whom she
liked, and who would be bound to support her without any exertion of
her own, looked beamingly happy and handsome. A little cloud came
over her face at the sight of Mr. Preston,--the sweet perpetuity of
her smile was rather disturbed as he followed in Mr. Gibson's wake.
But his face never changed; he bowed to her gravely, and then seemed
absorbed in the service. Ten minutes, and all was over. The bride
and bridegroom were driving together to the Manor-house, Mr. Preston
was walking thither by a short cut, and Molly was again in the
carriage with my lord, rubbing his hands and chuckling, and Lady
Harriet, trying to be kind and consolatory, when her silence would
have been the best comfort.

Molly found out, to her dismay, that the plan was for her to return
with Lord Cumnor and Lady Harriet when they went back to the Towers
in the evening. In the meantime Lord Cumnor had business to do with
Mr. Preston, and after the happy couple had driven off on their
week's holiday tour, she was to be left alone with the formidable
Lady Harriet. When they were by themselves after all the others had
been thus disposed of, Lady Harriet sate still over the drawing-room
fire, holding a screen' between it and her face, but gazing intently
at Molly for a minute or two. Molly was fully conscious of this
prolonged look, and was trying to get up her courage to return the
stare, when Lady Harriet suddenly said,--

'I like you;--you are a little wild creature, and I want to tame
you. Come here, and sit on this stool by me. What is your name? or
what do they call you?--as North-country people would express it.'

'Molly Gibson. My real name is Mary.'

'Molly is a nice, soft-sounding name. People in the last century
weren't afraid of homely names; now we are all so smart and fine: no
more "Lady Bettys" now. I almost wonder they haven't re-christened
all the worsted and knitting-cotton that bears her name. Fancy Lady
Constantia's cotton, or Lady Anna-Maria's worsted.'

'I didn't know there was a Lady Betty's cotton,' said Molly.

'That proves you don't do fancy-work! You'll find Clare will set you
to it, though. She used to set me at piece after piece: knights
kneeling to ladies; impossible flowers. But I must do her the
justice to add that when I got tired of them she finished them
herself. I wonder how you'll get on together?'

'So do I!' sighed out Molly, under her breath.

'I used to think I managed her, till one day an uncomfortable
suspicion arose that all the time she had been managing me. Still
it's easy work to let oneself be managed; at any rate till one
wakens up to the consciousness of the process, and then it may
become amusing, if one takes it in that light.'

'I should hate to be managed,' said Molly, indignantly. 'I'll try
and do what she wishes for papa's sake, if she'll only tell me
outright; but I should dislike to be trapped into anything.'

'Now I,' said Lady Harriet, 'am too lazy to avoid traps; and I
rather like to remark the cleverness with which they're set. But
then of course I know that, if I choose to exert myself, I can break
through the withes of green flax with which they try to bind me.
Now, perhaps, you won't be able.'

'I don't quite understand what you mean,' said Molly.

'Oh, well--never mind; I daresay it's as well for you that you
shouldn't. The moral of all I have been saying is, "Be a good girl,
and suffer yourself to be led, and you'll find your new stepmother
the sweetest creature imaginable." You'll get on capitally with her,
I make no doubt. How you'll get on with her daughter is another
affair; but I daresay very well. Now we'll ring for tea; for I
suppose that heavy breakfast is to stand for our lunch.'

Mr. Preston came into the room just at this time, and Molly was a
little surprised at Lady Harriet's cool manner of dismissing him,
remembering as she did how Mr. Preston had implied his intimacy with
her ladyship the evening before at dinner-time.

'I cannot bear that sort of person,' said Lady Harriet, almost
before he was out of hearing; 'giving himself airs of gallantry
towards one to whom his simple respect is all his duty. I can talk
to one of my father's labourers with pleasure, while with a man like
that underbred fop I am all over thorns and nettles. What is it the
Irish call that style of creature? They've got some capital word for
it, I know. What is it?'

'I don't know--I never heard it,' said Molly, a little ashamed of
her ignorance.

'Oh! that shows you've never read Miss Edgeworth's tales;--now, have
you? If you had, you'd have recollected that there was such a word,
even if you didn't remember what it was. If you've never read those
stories, they would be just the thing to beguile your
solitude--vastly improving and moral, and yet quite sufficiently
interesting. I'll lend them to you while you're all alone.'

'I'm not alone. I'm not at home, but on a visit to the Miss
Brownings.'

'Then I'll bring them to you. I know the Miss Brownings; they used
to come regularly on the school-day to the Towers. Pecksy and Flapsy
I used to call them. I like the Miss Brownings; one gets enough of
respect from them at any rate; and I've always wanted to see the
kind of ~menage~ of such people. I'll bring you a whole pile of
Miss Edgeworth's stories, my dear.'

Molly sate quite silent for a minute or two; then she mustered up
courage to speak out what was in her mind.

'Your ladyship' (the title was the firstfruits of the lesson, as
Molly took it, on paying due respect)--'your ladyship keeps speaking
of the sort of--the class of people to which I belong as if it was a
kind of strange animal you were talking about; yet you talk so
openly to me that--'

'Well, go on--I like to hear you.'

Still silence.

'You think me in your heart a little impertinent--now, don't you?'
said Lady Harriet, almost kindly.

Molly held her peace for two or three moments; then she lifted her
beautiful, honest eyes to Lady Harriet's face, and said,--

'Yes!--a little. But I think you a great many other things.'

'We'll leave the "other things" for the present. Don't you see,
little one, I talked after my kind, just as you talk after your
kind. It's only on the surface with both of us. Why, I daresay some
of your good Hollingford ladies talk of the poor people in a manner
which they would consider as impertinent in their turn, if they
could hear it. But I ought to be more considerate when I remember
how often my blood has boiled at the modes of speech and behaviour
of one of my aunts, mamma's sister, Lady--No! I won't name names.
Any one who earns his livelihood by an exercise of head or hands,
from professional people and rich merchants down to labourers, she
calls "persons." She would never in her most slip-slop talk accord
them even the conventional title of "gentlemen;" and the way in
which she takes possession of human beings, "my woman," "my
people,"--but, after all, it is only a way of speaking. I ought not
to have used it to you; but somehow I separate you from all these
Hollingford people.'

'But why?' persevered Molly. 'I'm one of them.'

'Yes, you I are. But--now don't reprove me again for
impertinence--most of them are so unnatural in their exaggerated
respect and admiration when they come up to the Towers, and put on
so much pretence by way of fine manners, that they only make
themselves objects of ridicule. You at least are simple and
truthful, and that's why I separate you in my own mind from them,
and have talked unconsciously to you as I would--Well! now here's
another piece of impertinence--as I would to my equal--in rank, I
mean; for I don't set myself up in solid things as any better than
my neighbours. Here's tea, however, come in time to stop me from
growing too humble.'

It was a very pleasant little tea in the fading September twilight.
just as it was ended, in came Mr. Preston again.

'Lady Harriet, will you allow me the pleasure of showing you some
alterations I have made in the flower-garden--in which I have tried
to consult your taste--before it grows dark?'

'Thank you, Mr. Preston. I will ride over with papa some day, and we
will see if we approve of them.'

Mr. Preston's brow flushed. But he affected not to perceive Lady
Harriet's haughtiness, and, turning to Molly, he said,--

'Will not you come out, Miss Gibson, and see something of the
gardens? You haven't been out at all, I think, excepting to church.'

Molly did not like the idea of going out for a ~tete-a-tete~
walk with Mr. Preston; yet she pined for a little fresh air, would
have liked to have seen the gardens, and have looked at the
Manor-house from different aspects; and, besides this, much as
she recoiled from Mr. Preston, she felt sorry for him under the
repulse he had just received. While she was hesitating, and
slowly tending towards consent, Lady Harriet spoke,--

'I cannot spare Miss Gibson. If she would like to see the place, I
will bring her over some day myself.'

When he had left the room, Lady Harriet said,--

'I daresay it's my own lazy selfishness has kept you indoors all day
against your will. But, at any rate, you are not to go out walking
with that man. I've an instinctive aversion to him; not entirely
instinctive either; it has some foundation in fact; and I desire you
don't allow him ever to get intimate with you. He's a very clever
land-agent, and does his duty by papa, and I don't choose to be
taken up for libel; but remember what I say!'

Then the carriage came round, and after numberless last words from
the earl--who appeared to have put off every possible direction to
the moment when he stood, like an awkward Mercury, balancing himself
on the step of the carriage--they drove back to the Towers.

'Would you rather come in and dine with us--we should send you home,
of course--or go home straight?' asked Lady Harriet of Molly. She
and her father had both been sleeping till they drew up at the
bottom of the flight of steps.

'Tell the truth, now and evermore. Truth is generally amusing, if
it's nothing else!'

'I would rather go back to Miss Brownings' at once, please,' said
Molly, with a nightmare-like recollection of the last, the only
evening she had spent at the Towers.

Lord Cumnor was standing on the steps, waiting to hand his daughter
out of the carriage. Lady Harriet stopped to kiss Molly on the
forehead, and to say,--

'I shall come some day soon, and bring you a load of Miss
Edgeworth's tales, and make further acquaintance with Pecksy and
Flapsy.'

'No, don't, please,' said Molly, taking hold of her, to detain her.
'You must not come--indeed you must not.'

'Why not?'

'Because I would rather not--because I think that I ought not to
have any one coming to see me who laughs at the friends I am staying
with, and calls them names.' Molly's heart beat very fast, but she
meant every word that she said.

'My dear little woman!' said Lady Harriet, bending over her and
speaking quite gravely. 'I'm very sorry to have called them
names--very, very sorry to have hurt you. If I promise you to be
respectful to them in word and deed--and in very thought, if I
can--you'll let me then, won't you?'

Molly hesitated. 'I'd better go home at once; I shall only say wrong
things--and there's Lord Cumnor waiting all this time.'

'Let him alone; he's very well amused hearing all the news of the
day from Brown. Then I shall come--under promise?'

So Molly drove off in solitary grandeur; and Miss Brownings' knocker
was loosened on its venerable hinges by the never-ending peal of
Lord Cumnor's footman.

They were full of welcome, full of curiosity. All through the long
day they had been missing their bright young visitor, and three or
four times in every hour they had been wondering and settling what
everybody was doing at that exact minute. What had become of Molly
during all the afternoon, had been a great perplexity to them; and
they were very much oppressed with a sense of the great honour she
had received in being allowed to spend so many hours ~tete-a-tete~
with Lady Harriet. They were, indeed, more excited by this one fact
than by all the details of the wedding, most of which they had
known of beforehand, and talked over with much perseverance
during the day. Molly began to feel as if there was some foundation
for Lady Harriet's inclination to ridicule the worship paid by the
good people of Hollingford to their liege lords, and to wonder with
what tokens of reverence they would receive Lady Harriet if she
came to pay her promised visit. She had never thought of concealing
the probability of this call until this evening; but now she felt
as if it would be better not to speak of the chance, as she was
not at all sure if the promise would be fulfilled.

Before Lady Harriet's call was paid, Molly received another visit.
Roger Hamley came riding over one day with a note from his mother,
and a wasps'-nest as a present from himself. Molly heard his
powerful voice come sounding up the little staircase, as he asked if
Miss Gibson was at home from the servant-maid at the door; and she
was half amused and half annoyed as she thought how this call of his
would give colour to Miss Browning's fancies. 'I would rather never
be married at all,' thought she, 'than marry an ugly man,--and dear
good Mr. Roger is really ugly; I don't think one could even call him
plain.' Yet the Miss Brownings, who did not look upon young men as
if their natural costume was a helmet and a suit of armour, thought
Mr. Roger Hamley a very personable young fellow, as he came into the
room, his face flushed with exercise, his white teeth showing
pleasantly in the courteous bow and smile he gave to all around. He
knew the Miss Brownings slightly, and talked pleasantly to them
while Molly read Mrs. Hamley's little missive of sympathy and good
wishes relating to the wedding; then he turned to her, and though
the Miss Brownings listened with all their ears, they could not find
out anything remarkable either in the words he said or the tone in
which they were spoken.

'I've brought you the wasps'-nest I promised you, Miss Gibson. There
has been no lack of such things this year; we've taken seventy-four
on my father's land alone; and one of the labourers, a poor fellow
who ekes out his wages by bee-keeping, has had a sad misfortune--the
wasps have turned the bees out of his seven hives, taken possession,
and eaten up the honey.'

'What greedy little vermin!' said Miss Browning.

Molly saw Roger's eyes twinkle at the misapplication of the word;'
but though he had a strong sense of humour, it never appeared to
diminish his respect for the people who amused him.

'I'm sure they deserve fire and brimstone more than the poor dear
innocent bees,' said Miss Phoebe. 'And then it seems so ungrateful
of mankind, who are going to feast on the honey!' She sighed over
the thought, as if it was too much for her.

While Molly finished reading her note, he explained its contents to
Miss Browning.

'My brother and I are going with my father to an agricultural
meeting at Canonbury on Thursday, and my mother desired me to say to
you how very much obliged to you she should be if you would spare
her Miss Gibson for the day. She was very anxious to ask for the
pleasure of your company, too, but she really is so poorly that we
persuaded her to be content with Miss Gibson, as she wouldn't
scruple leaving a young lady to amuse herself, which she would be
unwilling to do if you and your sister were there.'

'I'm sure she's very kind; very. Nothing would have given us more
pleasure,' said Miss Browning, drawing herself up in gratified
dignity. 'Oh, yes, we quite understand, Mr. Roger; and we fully
recognize Mrs. Hamley's kind intention. We will take the will for the
deed, as the common people express it. I believe that there was an
intermarriage between the Brownings and the Hamleys, a generation or
two ago.'

'I daresay there was,' said Roger. 'My mother is very delicate, and
obliged to humour her health, which has made her keep aloof from
society.'

'Then I may go?' said Molly, sparkling with the idea of seeing her
dear Mrs. Hamley again, yet afraid of appearing too desirous of
leaving her kind old friends.

'To be sure, my dear. Write a pretty note, and tell Mrs. Hamley how
much obliged to her we are for thinking of us.'

'I'm afraid I can't wait for a note,' said Roger. 'I must take a
message instead, for I have to meet my father at one o'clock, and
it's close upon it now.'

When he was gone, Molly felt so light-hearted at the thoughts of
Thursday that she could hardly attend to what the Miss Brownings
were saying. One was talking about the pretty muslin gown which
Molly had sent to the wash only that morning, and contriving how it
could be had back again in time for Molly to wear; and the other,
Miss Phoebe, totally inattentive to her sister's speaking for a
wonder, was piping out a separate strain of her own, and singing
Roger Hamley's praises.

'Such a fine-looking young man, and so courteous and affable. Like
the young men of our youth now, is he not, sister? And yet they all
say Mr. Osborne is the handsomest. What do you think, child?'

'I've never seen Mr. Osborne,' said Molly, blushing, and hating
herself for doing so. Why was it? She had never seen him as she
said. It was only that her fancy had dwelt on him so much.

He was gone; all the gentlemen were gone before the carriage, which
came to fetch Molly on Thursday, reached Hamley Hall. But Molly was
almost glad, she was so much afraid of being disappointed. Besides,
she had her dear Mrs. Hamley the more to herself; the quiet sit in
the morning-room, talking poetry and romance; the mid-day saunter
into the garden, brilliant with autumnal flowers and glittering
dew-drops on the gossamer webs that stretched from scarlet to blue,
and thence to purple and yellow petals. As they were sitting at
lunch, a strange man's voice and step were heard in the hall; the
door was opened, and a young man came in, who could be no other than
Osborne. He was beautiful and languid-looking, almost as frail in
appearance as his mother, whom he strongly resembled. This seeming
delicacy made him appear older than he was. He was dressed to
perfection, and yet with easy carelessness. He came up to his
mother, and stood by her, holding her hand, while his eyes sought
Molly, not boldly or impertinently, but as if appraising her
critically.

'Yes! I'm back again. Bullocks, I find, are not in my line. I only
disappointed my father in not being able to appreciate their merits,
and, I'm afraid, I didn't care to learn. And the smell was
insufferable on such a hot day.'

'My dear boy, don't make apologies to me; keep them for your father.
I'm only too glad to have you back. Miss Gibson, this tall fellow is
my son Osborne, as I daresay you have guessed. Osborne--Miss Gibson.
Now, what will you have?'

He looked round the table as he sate down. 'Nothing here,' said he.
'Is there not some cold game-pie? I'll ring for that.'

Molly was trying to reconcile the ideal with the real. The ideal was
agile, yet powerful, with Greek features and an eagle-eye, capable
of enduring long fasting, and indifferent as to what he ate. The
real was almost effeminate in movement, though not in figure; he had
the Greek features, but his blue eyes had a cold, weary expression
in them. He was dainty in eating, and had anything but a Homeric
appetite. However, Molly's hero was not to eat more than Ivanhoe,
when he was Friar Tuck's guest;' and, after all, with a little
alteration, she began to think Mr. Osborne Hamley might turn out a
poetical, if not a chivalrous hero. He was extremely attentive to
his mother, which pleased Molly, and, in return, Mrs. Hamley seemed
charmed with him to such a degree that Molly once or twice fancied
that mother and son would have been happier in her absence. Yet,
again, it struck on the shrewd, if simple girl, that Osborne was
mentally squinting at her in the conversation which was directed to
his mother. There were little turns and '~fioriture~' of speech
which Molly could not help feeling were graceful antics of language
not common in the simple daily intercourse between mother and son.
But it was flattering rather than otherwise to perceive that a very
fine young man, who was a poet to boot, should think it worth while
to talk on the tight rope for her benefit. And before the afternoon
was ended, without there having been any direct conversation between
Osborne and Molly, she had reinstated him on his throne in her
imagination; indeed, she had almost felt herself disloyal to her
dear Mrs. Hamley when, in the first hour after her introduction, she
had questioned his claims on his mother's idolatry. His beauty came
out more and more, as he became animated in some discussion with
her; and all his attitudes, if a little studied, were graceful in
the extreme. Before Molly left, the squire and Roger returned from
Canonbury.

'Osborne here!' said the squire, red and panting. 'Why the deuce
couldn't you tell us you were coming home? I looked about for you
everywhere, just as we were going into the ordinary. I wanted to
introduce you to Grantley, and Fox, and Lord Forrest-men from the
other side of the county, whom you ought to know; and Roger there
missed above half his dinner hunting about for you; and all the time
you'd stole away, and were quietly sitting here with the women. I
wish you'd let me know the next time you make off. I've lost half my
pleasure in looking at as fine a lot of cattle as I ever saw, with
thinking you might be having one of your old attacks of faintness.'

'I should have had one, I think, if I'd stayed longer in that
atmosphere. But I'm sorry if I've caused you anxiety.'

'Well! well!' said the squire, somewhat mollified. 'And Roger,
too,--there I've been sending him here and sending him there all the
afternoon.'

'I didn't mind it, sir. I was only sorry you were so uneasy. I
thought Osborne had gone home, for I knew it wasn't much in his
way,' said Roger.

Molly intercepted a glance between the two brothers--a look of true
confidence and love, which suddenly made her like them both under
the aspect of relationship--new to her observation.

Roger came up to her, and sate down by her.

'Well, and how are you getting on with Huber; don't you find him
very interesting?'

'I'm afraid,' said Molly, penitently, 'I haven't read much. The Miss
Brownings like me to talk; and, besides, there is so much to do at
home before papa comes back; and Miss Browning doesn't like me to go
without her. I know it sounds nothing, but it does take up a great
deal of time.'

'When is your father coming back?'

'Next Tuesday, I believe. He cannot stay long away.'

'I shall ride over and pay my respects to Mrs. Gibson,' said he. 'I
shall come as soon as I may. Your father has been a very kind friend
to me ever since I was a boy. And when I come, I shall expect my
pupil to have been very diligent,' he concluded, smiling his kind,
pleasant smile at idle Molly.

Then the carriage came round, and she had the long solitary drive
back to Miss Brownings'. It was dark out of doors when she got
there; but Miss Phoebe was standing on the stairs, with a lighted
candle in her hand, peering into the darkness to see Molly come in.

'Oh, Molly! I thought you'd never come back. Such a piece of news!
Sister has gone to bed; she's had a headache--with the excitement, I
think; but she says it's new bread. Come upstairs softly, my dear,
and I'll tell you what it is! Who do you think has been
here,--drinking tea with us, too, in the most condescending manner?'

'Lady Harriet?' said Molly, suddenly enlightened by the word
'condescending.'

'Yes. Why, how did you guess it? But, after all, her call, at any
rate in the first instance, was upon you. Oh dear, Molly! if you're
not in a hurry to go to bed, let me sit down quietly and tell you
all about it; for my heart jumps into my mouth still when I think of
how I was caught. She--that is, her ladyship--left the carriage at
the "George," and took to her feet to go shopping--just as you or I
may have done many a time in our lives. And sister was taking her
forty winks; and I was sitting with my gown up above my knees and my
feet on the fender, pulling out my grandmother's lace which I'd been
washing. The worst has yet to be told. I'd taken off my cap, for I
thought it was getting dusk and no one would come, and there was I
in my black silk skull-cap, when Nancy put her head in, and
whispered, "There's a lady downstairs--a real grand one, by her
talk;" and in there came my Lady Harriet, so sweet and pretty in her
ways, it was some time before I remembered I had never a cap on.
Sister never wakened; or never roused up, so to say. She says she
thought it was Nancy bringing in the tea when she heard some one
moving; for her ladyship, as soon as she saw the state of the case,
came and knelt down on the rug by me, and begged my pardon so
prettily for having followed Nancy upstairs without waiting for
permission; and was so taken by my old lace, and wanted to know how
I washed it, and where you were, and when you'd be back, and when
the happy couple would be back: till sister wakened--she's always a
little bit put out, you know, when she first wakens from her
afternoon nap,--and, without turning her head to see who it was, she
said, quite sharp,--

"Buzz, buzz, buzz! When will you learn that whispering is more
fidgeting than talking out loud? I've not been able to sleep at all
for the chatter you and Nancy have been keeping up all this time.
You know that was a little fancy of sister's, for she'd been snoring
away as naturally as could be."

So I went to her, and leant over her, and said, in a low voice,--

'Sister, it's her ladyship and me that has been conversing.'

'"Ladyship here, ladyship there! have you lost your wits, Phoebe,
that you talk such nonsense--and in your skull-cap, too!"'

By this time she was sitting up, and, looking round her, she saw
Lady Harriet, in her velvets and silks, sitting on our rug, smiling,
her bonnet off, and her pretty hair all bright with the blaze of the
fire. My word! Sister was up on her feet directly; and she dropped
her curtsey, and made her excuses for sleeping, as fast as might be,
while I went off to put on my best cap, for sister might well say I
was out of my wits to go on chatting to an earl's daughter in an old
black silk skull-cap. Black silk, too! when, if I'd only known she
was coming, I might have put on my new brown silk one, lying idle in
my top drawer. And when I came back, sister was ordering tea for her
ladyship,--our tea, I mean. So I took my turn at talk, and sister
slipped out to put on her Sunday silk. But I don't think we were
quite so much at our case with her ladyship as when I sate pulling
out my lace in my skull-cap. And she was quite struck with our tea,
and asked where we got it, for she had never tasted any like it
before; and I told her we gave only 3~s~. 4~d~. a pound for it, at
Johnson's--(sister says I ought to have told her the price of our
company-tea, which is 5~s~. a pound, only that was not what we were
drinking; for, as ill-luck would have it, we'd none of it in the
house)--and she said she would send us some of hers, all the way
from Russia or Prussia, or some out-of-the-way place, and we were to
compare and see which we liked best; and if we liked hers best, she
could get it for us at 3~s~. a pound. And she left her love for you;
and, though she was going away, you were not to forget her. Sister
thought such a message would set you up too much, and told me she
would not be chargeable for the giving it you. "But," I said, "a
message is a message, and it's on Molly's own shoulders if she's set
up by it. Let us show her an example of humility, sister, though we
have been sitting cheek-by-jowl in such company." So sister humphed,
and said she'd a headache, and went to bed. And now you may tell me
your news, my dear.'

So Molly told her small events; which, interesting as they might
have been at other times to the gossip-loving and sympathetic Miss
Phoebe, were rather pale in the stronger light reflected from the
visit of an earl's daughter.

CHAPTER XV

THE NEW MAMMA

On Tuesday afternoon Molly returned home, to the home which was
already strange, and what Warwickshire people would call 'unked,' to
her. New paint, new paper, new colours; grim servants dressed in
their best, and objecting to every change--from their master's
marriage to the new oilcloth in the hall, 'which tripped 'em up, and
threw 'em down, and was cold to the feet, and smelt just
abominable.' All these complaints Molly had to listen to, and it was
not a cheerful preparation for the reception which she already felt
to be so formidable.

The sound of their carriage-wheels was heard at last, and Molly went
to the front door to meet them. Her father got out first, and took
her hand and held it while he helped his bride to alight. Then he
kissed her fondly, and passed her on to his wife; but her veil was
so securely (and becomingly) fastened down, that it was some time
before Mrs. Gibson could get her lips clear to greet her new
daughter. Then there was luggage to be seen about; and both the
travellers were occupied in this, while Molly stood by, trembling
with excitement, unable to help, and only conscious of Betty's
rather cross looks, as heavy box after heavy box jammed up the
passage.

'Molly, my dear, show--your mamma to her room!'

Mr. Gibson had hesitated, because the question of the name by which
Molly was to call her new relation had never occurred to him before.
The colour flashed into Molly's face. Was she to call her
'mamma'?--the name long appropriated in her mind to some one else--
to her own dead mother. The rebellious heart rose against it, but
she said nothing. She led the way upstairs, Mrs. Gibson turning
round, from time to time, with some fresh direction as to which bag
or trunk she needed most. She hardly spoke to Molly till they were
both in the newly-furnished bedroom, where a small fire had been
lighted by Molly's orders.

'Now, my love, we can embrace each other in peace. Oh dear, how
tired I am!'--(after the embrace had been accomplished.) 'My spirits
are so easily affected with fatigue; but your dear papa has been
kindness itself. Dear! what an old-fashioned bed! And what a--But it
doesn't signify. By-and-by we'll renovate the house--won't we, my
dear? And you'll be my little maid to-night, and help me to arrange
a few things, for I'm just worn out with the day's journey.'

'I've ordered a sort of tea-dinner to be ready for you,' said Molly.
'Shall I go and tell them to send it in?'

'I'm not sure if I can go down again to-night. It would be very
comfortable to have a little table brought in here, and sit in my
dressing-gown by this cheerful fire. But, to be sure, there's your
dear papa? I really don't think he would eat anything if I were not
there. One must not think about oneself, you know. Yes, I'll come
down in a quarter of an hour.'

But Mr. Gibson had found a note awaiting him, with an immediate
summons to an old patient, dangerously ill; and, snatching a
mouthful of food while his horse was being saddled, he had to resume
at once his old habits of attention to his profession above
everything.

As soon as Mrs. Gibson found that he was not likely to miss her
presence--he had eaten a very tolerable lunch of bread and cold meat
in solitude, so her fears about his appetite in her absence were not
well founded--she desired to have her meal upstairs in her own room;
and poor Molly, not daring to tell the servants of this whim, had to
carry up first a table, which, however small, was too heavy for her;
and afterwards all the choice portions of the meal, which she had
taken great pains to arrange on the table, as she had seen such
things done at Hamley, intermixed with fruit and flowers that had
that morning been sent in from various great houses where Mr. Gibson
was respected and valued. How pretty Molly had thought her handiwork
an hour or two before! How dreary it seemed as, at last released
from Mrs. Gibson's conversation, she sate down in solitude to cold
tea and the drumsticks of the chicken! No one to look at her
preparations, and admire her left-handedness and taste! She had
thought that her father would be gratified by it, and then he had
never seen it. She had meant her cares as an offering of good-will
to her stepmother, who even now was ringing her bell to have the
tray taken away, and Miss Gibson summoned to her bedroom,

Molly hastily finished her meal, and went upstairs again.

'I feel so lonely, darling, in this strange house; do come and be
with me, and help me to unpack. I think your dear papa might have
put off his visit to Mr. Craven Smith for just this one evening.'

'Mr. Craven Smith couldn't put off his dying,' said Molly, bluntly.

'You droll girl!' said Mrs. Gibson, with a faint laugh. 'But if this
Mr. Smith is dying, as you say, what's the use of your father's going
off to him in such a hurry? Does he expect any legacy, or anything
of that kind?'

Molly bit her lips to prevent herself from saying something
disagreeable. She only answered,--

'I don't quite know that he is dying. The man said so; and papa can
sometimes do something to make the last struggle easier. At any
rate, it's always a comfort to the family to have him.'

'What dreary knowledge of death you have learned for a girl of your
age! Really, if I had heard all these details of your father's
profession, I doubt if I could have brought myself to have him!'

'He doesn't make the illness or the death; he does his best against
them. I call it a very fine thing to think of what he does or tries
to do. And you will think so, too, when you see how he is watched
for, and how people welcome him!'

'Well, don't let us talk any more of such gloomy things to-night! I
think I shall go to bed at once, I am so tired, if you will only sit
by me till I get sleepy, darling. If you will talk to me, the sound
of your voice will soon send me off.'

Molly got a book, and read her stepmother to sleep, preferring that
to the harder task of keeping up a continual murmur of speech.

Then she stole down and went into the dining-room, where the fire
was gone out; purposely neglected by the servants, to mark their
displeasure at their new mistress's having had her tea in her own
room. Molly managed to light it, however, before her father came
home, and collected and rearranged some comfortable food for him.
Then she knelt down again on the hearth-rug, gazing into the fire in
a dreamy reverie, which had enough of sadness about it to cause the
tears to drop unnoticed from her eyes. But she jumped up, and shook
herself into brightness at the sound of her father's step.

'How is Mr. Craven Smith?' said she.

'Dead. He just recognized me. He was one of my first patients on
coming to Hollingford.'

Mr. Gibson sate down in the arm-chair made ready for him, and warmed
his hands at the fire, seeming neither to need food nor talk, as he
went over a train of recollections. Then he roused himself from his
sadness, and looking round the room, he said briskly enough,--

'And where's the new mamma?'

'She was tired, and went to bed early. Oh, papa! must I call her
"mamma"?'

'I should like it,' replied he, with a slight contraction of the
brows.

Molly was silent. She put a cup or tea near him; he stirred it, and
sipped it, and then he recurred to the subject.

'Why shouldn't you call her "mamma"? I'm sure she means to do the
duty of a mother to you. We all may make mistakes, and her ways may
not be quite all at once our ways; but at any rate let us start with
a family bond between us.'

What would Roger say was right?--that was the question that rose to
Molly's mind. She had always spoken of her father's new wife as Mrs
Gibson, and had once burst out at Miss Brownings' with a
protestation that she never would call her 'mamma.' She did not feel
drawn to her new relation by their intercourse that evening. She
kept silence, though she knew her father was expecting an answer. At
last he gave up his expectation, and turned to another subject; told
about their journey, questioned her as to the Hamleys, the
Brownings, Lady Harriet, and the afternoon they had passed together
at the Manor House. But there was a certain hardness and constraint
in his manner, and in hers a heaviness and absence of mind. All at
once she said,--

'Papa, I will call her "mamma"!'

He took her hand, and grasped it tight; but for an instant or two he
did not speak. Then he said,--

'You won't be sorry for it, Molly, when you come to lie as poor
Craven Smith did to-night.'

For some time the murmurs and grumblings of the two elder servants
were confined to Molly's ears, then they spread to her father's,
who, to Molly's dismay, made summary work with them.

'You don't like Mrs. Gibson's ringing her bell so often, don't you?
You've been spoilt, I'm afraid; but if you don't conform to my
wife's desires, you have the remedy in your own hands, you know.'

What servant ever resisted the temptation to give warning after such
a speech as that? Betty told Molly she was going to leave, in as
indifferent a manner as she could possibly assume towards the girl,
whom she had tended and been about for the last sixteen years. Molly
had hitherto considered her former nurse as a fixture in the house;
she would almost as soon have thought of her father's proposing to
sever the relationship between them; and here was Betty coolly
talking over whether her next place should be in town or country.
But a great deal of this was assumed hardness. In a week or two
Betty was in floods of tears at the prospect of leaving her
nursling, and would fain have stayed and answered all the bells in
the house once every quarter of an hour. Even Mr. Gibson's masculine
heart was touched by the sorrow of the old servant, which made
itself obvious to him every time he came across her by her broken
voice and her swollen eyes.

One day he said to Molly, 'I wish you'd ask your mamma if Betty
might not stay, if she made a proper apology, and all that sort of
thing.'

'I don't much think it will be of any use,' said Molly, in a
mournful voice. 'I know she is writing, or has written, about some
under-housemaid at the Towers.'

'Well!--all I want is peace and a decent quantity of cheerfulness
when I come home. I see enough of tears in other people's houses.
After all, Betty has been with us sixteen years--a sort of service
of the antique world. But the woman may be happier elsewhere. Do as
you like about asking mamma; only if she agrees, I shall be quite
willing.'

So Molly tried her hand at making a request to that effect to Mrs
Gibson. Her instinct told her she should be unsuccessful; but surely
favour was never refused in so soft a tone.

'My dear girl, I should never have thought of sending an old servant
away,--one who has had the charge of you from your birth, or nearly
so. I could not have had the heart to do it. She might have stayed
for ever for me, if she had only attended to all my wishes; and I am
not unreasonable, am I? But, you see, she complained; and when your
dear papa spoke to her, she gave warning; and it is quite against my
principles ever to take an apology from a servant who has given
warning.'

'She is so sorry,' pleaded Molly; 'she says she will do anything you
wish, and attend to all your orders, if she may only stay.'

'But, sweet one, you seem to forget that I cannot go against my
principles, however much I may be sorry for Betty. She should not
have given way to ill-temper. As I said before, although I never
liked her, and considered her a most inefficient servant, thoroughly
spoilt by having had no mistress for so long, I should have borne
with her--at least, I think I should--as long as I could. Now I
have all but engaged Maria, who was under-housemaid at the Towers,
so don't let me hear any more of Betty's sorrow, or anybody else's
sorrow, for I'm sure, what with your dear papa's sad stories and
other things, I'm getting quite low.'

Molly was silent for a moment or two.

'Have you quite engaged Maria?' asked she.

'No--I said "all but engaged." Sometimes one would think you did not
hear things, dear Molly!' replied Mrs. Gibson, petulantly. 'Maria is
living in a place where they don't give her as much wages as she
deserves. Perhaps they can't afford it, poor things! I'm always
sorry for poverty, and would never speak hardly of those who are not
rich; but I have offered her two pounds more than she gets at
present, so I think she'll leave. At any rate, if they increase her
wages, I shall increase my offer in proportion; so I think I'm sure
to get her. Such a genteel girl!--always brings in a letter on a
salver!'

'Poor Betty!' said Molly, softly.

'Poor old soul! I hope she'll profit by the lesson, I'm sure,'
sighed out Mrs. Gibson; 'but it's a pity we hadn't Maria before the
county families began to call.'

Mrs. Gibson had been highly gratified by the circumstances of so many
calls 'from county families.' Her husband was much respected; and
many ladies from various halls, courts, and houses, who had profited
by his services towards themselves and their families, thought it
right to pay his new wife the attention of a call when they drove
into Hollingford to shop. The state of expectation into which these
calls threw Mrs. Gibson rather diminished Mr. Gibson's domestic
comfort. It was awkward to be carrying hot, savoury-smelling dishes
from the kitchen to the dining-room at the very time when high-born
ladies, with noses of aristocratic refinement, might be calling.
Still more awkward was the accident which happened in consequence of
clumsy Betty's haste to open the front door to a lofty footman's
ran-tan, which caused her to set down the basket containing the
dirty plates right in his mistress's way, as she stepped gingerly
through the comparative darkness of the hall; and then the young
men, leaving the dining-room quietly enough, but bursting with
long-repressed giggle, or no longer restraining their tendency to
practical joking, no matter who might be in the passage when they
made their exit. The remedy proposed by Mrs. Gibson for all these
distressing grievances was a late dinner. The luncheon for the young
men, as she observed to her husband, might be sent into the surgery.
A few elegant cold trifles for herself and Molly would not scent the
house, and she would always take care to have some little dainty
ready for him. He acceded, but unwillingly, for it was an innovation
on the habits of a lifetime, and he felt as if he should never be
able to arrange his rounds aright with this newfangled notion of a
six o'clock dinner.

'Don't get any dainties for me, my dear; bread and cheese is the
chief of my diet, like it was that of the old woman's.'

'I know nothing of your old woman,' replied his wife; 'but really I
cannot allow cheese to come beyond the kitchen.'

'Then I'll eat it there,' said he. 'It's close to the stable-yard,
and if I come in in a hurry I can get it in a moment.'

'Really, Mr. Gibson, it is astonishing to compare your appearance and
manners with your tastes. You look such a gentleman, as dear Lady
Cumnor used to say.'

Then the cook left; also an old servant, though not so old a one as
Betty. The cook did not like the trouble of late dinners; and, being
a Methodist, she objected on religious grounds to trying any of Mrs
Gibson's new receipts for French dishes. It was not scriptural, she
said. There was a deal of mention of food in the Bible; but it was
of sheep ready dressed, which meant mutton, and of wine, and of
bread, and milk, and figs and raisins, of fatted calves, a good
well-browned fillet of veal, and such like; but it had always gone
against her conscience to cook swine-flesh and make raised
pork-pies, and now if she was to be set to cook heathen dishes after
the fashion of the Papists, she'd sooner give it all up together. So
the cook followed in Betty's track, and Mr. Gibson had to satisfy his
healthy English appetite on badly made omelettes, rissoles,
~vol-au-vents, croquets~, and timbales; never being exactly sure
what he was eating.

He had made up his mind before his marriage to yield in trifles, and
be firm in greater things. But the differences of opinion about
trifles arose every day, and were perhaps more annoying than if they
had related to things of more consequence. Molly knew her father's
looks as well as she knew her alphabet; his wife did not; and being
an unperceptive person, except when her own interests were dependent
upon another person's humour, never found out how he was worried by
all the small daily concessions which he made to her will or her
whims. He never allowed himself to put any regret into shape, even
in his own mind; he repeatedly reminded himself of his wife's good
qualities, and comforted himself by thinking they should work
together better as time rolled on; but he was very angry at a
bachelor great-uncle of Mr. Coxe's, who, after taking no notice of
his red-headed nephew for years, suddenly sent for him, after the
old man had partially recovered from a serious attack of illness,
and appointed him his heir, on condition that his great-nephew
remained with him during the remainder of his life. This had
happened almost directly after Mr. and Mrs. Gibson's return from their
wedding journey, and once or twice since that time Mr. Gibson had
found himself wondering why the deuce old Benson could not have made
up his mind sooner, and so have rid his house of the unwelcome
presence of the young lover. To do Mr. Coxe justice, in the very last
conversation he had as a pupil with Mr. Gibson he had said, with
hesitating awkwardness, that perhaps the new circumstances in which
he should be placed might make some difference with regard to Mr
Gibson's opinion on--

'Not at all,' said Mr. Gibson, quickly. 'You are both of you too
young to know your own minds; and if my daughter was silly enough to
be in love, she should never have to calculate her happiness on the
chances of an old man's death. I dare say he'll disinherit you after
all. He may do, and then you'd be worse off than ever. No! go away,
and forget all this nonsense; and when you've done, come back and
see us!'

So Mr. Coxe went away, with an oath of unalterable faithfulness in
his heart; and Mr. Gibson had unwillingly to fulfil an old promise
made to a gentleman farmer in the neighbourhood a year or two
before, and to take the second son of Mr. Browne in young Coxe's
place. He was to be the last of the race of pupils, and as he was
rather more than a year younger than Molly, Mr. Gibson trusted that
there would be no repetition of the Coxe romance.

CHAPTER XVI

THE BRIDE AT HOME

Among the 'county people' (as Mrs. Gibson termed them) who called
upon her as a bride, were the two young Mr. Hamleys. The Squire,
their father, had done his congratulations, as far as he ever
intended to do them, to Mr. Gibson himself when he came to the hall;
but Mrs. Hamley, unable to go and pay visits herself, anxious to show
attention to her kind doctor's new wife, and with perhaps a little
sympathetic curiosity as to how Molly and her stepmother got on
together, made her sons ride over to Hollingford with her cards and
apologies. They came into the newly-furnished drawing-room, looking
bright and fresh from their ride: Osborne first, as usual,
perfectly dressed for the occasion, and with the sort of fine manner
which sate so well upon him; Roger, looking like a strong-built,
cheerful, intelligent country farmer, followed in his brother's
train. Mrs. Gibson was dressed for receiving callers, and made the
effect she always intended to produce, of a very pretty woman, no
longer in first youth, but with such soft manners and such a
caressing voice, that people forgot to wonder what her real age
might be. Molly was better dressed than formerly; her stepmother saw
after that. She disliked anything old or shabby, or out of taste
about her; it hurt her eye; and she had already fidgeted Molly into
a new amount of care about the manner in which she put on her
clothes, arranged her hair, and was gloved and shod. Mrs. Gibson had
tried to put her through a course of rosemary washes and creams in
order to improve her tanned complexion; but about that Molly was
either forgetful or rebellious, and Mrs. Gibson could not well come
up to the girl's bedroom every night and see that she daubed her
face and neck over with the cosmetics so carefully provided for her.
Still, her appearance was extremely improved, even to Osborne's
critical eye. Roger sought rather to discover in her looks and
expression whether she was happy or not; his mother had especially
charged him to note all these signs.

Osborne and Mrs. Gibson made themselves agreeable to each other
according to the approved fashion when a young man calls on a
middle-aged bride. They talked of the 'Shakespeare and musical
glasses' of the day, each viewing with the other in their knowledge
of London topics. Molly heard fragments of their conversation in the
pauses of silence between Roger and herself. Her hero was coming out
in quite a new character; no longer literary or poetical, or
romantic, or critical, he was now full of the last new play, the
singers at the opera. He had the advantage over Mrs. Gibson, who, in
fact, only spoke of these things from hearsay, from listening to the
talk at the Towers, while Osborne had run up from Cambridge two or
three times to hear this, or to see that, wonder of the season. But
she had the advantage over him in greater boldness of invention to
eke out her facts; and besides she had more skill in the choice and
arrangement of her words, so as to make it appear as if the opinions
that were in reality quotations, were formed by herself from actual
experience or personal observation; such as, in speaking of the
mannerisms of a famous Italian singer, she would ask,--

'Did you observe her constant trick of heaving her shoulders and
clasping her hands together before she took a high note?'--which was
so said as to imply that Mrs. Gibson herself had noticed this trick.
Molly, who had a pretty good idea by this time of how her stepmother
had passed the last year of her life, listened with no small
bewilderment to this conversation; but at length decided that she
must misunderstand what they were saying, as she could not gather up
the missing links for the necessity of replying to Roger's questions
and remarks. Osborne was not the same Osborne he was when with his
mother at the hall. Roger saw her glancing at his brother.

'You think my brother looking ill?' said he, lowering his voice.

'No--not exactly.'

'He is not well. Both my father and I are anxious about him. That
run on the Continent did him harm, instead of good; and his
disappointment at his examination has told upon him, I'm afraid.'

'I was not thinking he looked ill; only changed somehow.'

'He says he must go back to Cambridge soon. Possibly it may do him
good; and I shall be off next week. This is a farewell visit to you,
as well as one of congratulation to Mrs. Gibson.'

'Your mother will feel your both going away, won't she? But of
course young men will always have to live away from home.'

'Yes,' he replied. 'Still she feels it a good deal; and I am not
satisfied about her health either. You will go over and see her
sometimes, will you? she is very fond of you.'

'If I may,' said Molly, unconsciously glancing at her stepmother.
She had an uncomfortable instinct that, in spite of Mrs. Gibson's own
perpetual flow of words, she could, and did, hear everything that
fell from Molly's lips.

'Do you want any more books?' said he. 'If you do, make a list out,
and send it to my mother before I leave, next Tuesday. After I am
gone, there will be no one to go into the library and pick them
out.'

After they were gone, Mrs. Gibson began her usual comments on the
departed visitors.

'I do like that Osborne Hamley! What a nice fellow he is! Somehow, I
always do like eldest sons. He will have the estate, won't he? I
shall ask your dear papa to encourage him to come about the house.
He will be a very good, very pleasant acquaintance for you and
Cynthia. The other is but a loutish young fellow, to my mind; there
is no aristocratic bearing about him. I suppose he takes after his
mother, who is but a parvenue, I've heard them say at the Towers.'

Molly was spiteful enough to have great pleasure in saying,--

'I think I've heard her father was a Russia merchant, and imported
tallow and hemp. Mr. Osborne Hamley is extremely like her.'

'Indeed! But there's no calculating these things. Anyhow, he is the
perfect gentleman in appearance and manner. The estate is entailed,
is it not?'

'I know nothing about it,' said Molly.

A short silence ensued. Then Mrs. Gibson said,--

'Do you know, I almost think I must get dear papa to give a little
dinner-party, and ask Mr. Osborne Hamley? I should like to have him
feel at home in this house. It would be something cheerful for him
after the dulness and solitude of Hamley Hall. For the old people
don't visit much, I believe?'

'He's going back to Cambridge next week,' said Molly.

'Is he? Well, then, we'll put off our little dinner till Cynthia
comes home. I should like to have some young society for her, poor
darling, when she returns.'

'When is she coming?' said Molly, who had always a longing curiosity
for this same Cynthia's return.

'Oh! I'm not sure; perhaps at the new year--perhaps not till Easter.
I must get this drawing-room all new furnished first; and then I
mean to fit up her room and yours just alike. They are just the same
size, only on opposite sides of the passage.'

'Are you going to new-furnish that room?' said Molly, in
astonishment at the never-ending changes.

'Yes; and yours, too, darling; so don't be jealous.'

'Oh, please, mamma, not mine,' said Molly, taking in the idea for
the first time.

'Yes, dear! You shall have yours done as well. A little French bed,'
and a new paper, and a pretty carpet, and a dressed-up
~toilette~-table and glass, will make it look quite a different
place.'

'But I don't want it to look different. I like it as it is. Pray
don't do anything to it.'

'What nonsense, child! I never heard anything more ridiculous! Most
girls would be glad to get rid of furniture only fit for the
lumber-room.'

'It was my own mamma's before she was married,' said Molly, in a
very low voice; bringing out this last plea unwillingly, but with a
certainty that it would not be resisted.

Mrs. Gibson paused for a moment before she replied,--

'It's very much to your credit that you should have such feelings,
I'm sure. But don't you think sentiment may be carried too far? Why,
we should have no new furniture at all, and should have to put up
with worm-eaten horrors. Besides, my dear, Hollingford will seem
very dull to Cynthia, after pretty, gay France, and I want to make
the first impressions attractive. I've a notion I can settle her
down near here; and I want her to come in a good temper; for,
between ourselves, my dear, she is a little, leetle wilful. You need
not mention this to your papa.'

'But can't you do Cynthia's room, and not mine? Please let mine
alone.'

'No, indeed! I couldn't agree to that. Only think what would be said
of me by everybody; petting my own child, and neglecting my
husband's! I couldn't bear it.'

'No one need know.'

'In such a tittle-tattle place as Hollingford! Really, Molly, you
are either very stupid or very obstinate, or else you don't care
what hard things may be said about me: and all for a selfish fancy
of your own! No! I owe myself the justice of acting in this matter
as I please. Every one shall know I'm not a common stepmother. Every
penny I spend on Cynthia I shall spend on you too; so it's no use
talking any more about it.'

So Molly's little white dimity bed, her old-fashioned chest of
drawers, and her other cherished relics of her mother's maiden-days,
were consigned to the lumber-room; and after a while, when Cynthia
and her great French boxes had come home, the old furniture that had
filled up the space required for the fresh importation of trunks,
disappeared into the lumber-room.

All this time the family at the Towers had been absent; Lady Cumnor
had been ordered to Bath for the early part of the winter, and her
family were with her there. On dull rainy days, Mrs. Gibson used to
bethink her of missing 'the Cumnors,' for so she had taken to
calling them since her position had become more independent of
theirs. It marked a distinction between her intimacy in the family,
and the reverential manner in which the townspeople were accustomed
to speak of 'the earl and the countess.' both Lady Cumnor and Lady
Harriet wrote to their dear Clare from time to time. The former had
generally some commissions that she wished to have executed at the
Towers, or in the town; and no one could do them so well as Clare,
who was acquainted with all the tastes and ways of the countess.
These commissions were the cause of various bills for flys and cars
from the 'George' Inn. Mr. Gibson pointed out this consequence to his
wife; but she, in return, bade him remark that a present of game was
pretty sure to follow upon the satisfactory execution of Lady
Cumnor's wishes. Somehow, Mr. Gibson did not quite like this
consequence either; but he was silent about it, at any rate. Lady
Harriet's letters were short and amusing. She had that sort of
regard for her old governess which prompted her to write from time
to time, and to feel glad when the half-voluntary task was
accomplished. So there was no real outpouring of confidence, but
enough news of the family and gossip of the place she was in, as she
thought would make Clare feel that she was not forgotten by her
former pupils, intermixed with moderate but sincere expressions of
regard. How those letters were quoted and referred to by Mrs. Gibson
in her conversations with the Hollingford ladies! She had found out
their effect at Ashcombe; and it was not less at Hollingford. But
she was rather perplexed at kindly messages to Molly, and at
inquiries as to how the Miss Brownings liked the tea she had sent;
and Molly had first to explain, and then to narrate at full length,
all the occurrences of the afternoon at Ashcombe Manor House, and
Lady Harriet's call upon her at Miss Brownings'.

'What nonsense!' said Mrs. Gibson, with some annoyance. 'Lady Harriet
only went to see you out of a desire of amusement. She would only
make fun of the Miss Brownings, and then they will be quoting her
and talking about her, just as if she was their intimate friend.'

'I don't think she did make fun of them. She really sounded as if
she had been very kind.'

'And you suppose you know her ways better than I do, who have known
her these fifteen years? I tell you she turns every one into
ridicule who does not belong to her set. Why, she used always to
speak of the Miss Brownings as "Pecksy and Flapsy."'

'She promised me she would not,' said Molly driven to bay.

'Promised you!--Lady Harriet? What do you mean?'

'Only--she spoke of them as Pecksy and Flapsy--and when she talked
of coming to call on me at their house, I asked her not to come if
she was going to--to make fun of them.'

'Upon my word! with all my long acquaintance with Lady Harriet I
should never have ventured on such impertinence.'

'I didn't mean it as impertinence,' said Molly, sturdily. 'And I
don't think Lady Harriet took it as such.'

'You can't know anything about it. She can put on any kind of
manner.'

Just then Squire Hamley came in. It was his first call; and Mrs
Gibson gave him a graceful welcome, and was quite ready to accept
his apology for its tardiness, and to assure him that she quite
understood the pressure of business on every landowner who farmed
his own estate. But no such apology was made. He shook her hand
heartily, as a mark of congratulation on her good fortune in having
secured such a prize as his friend Gibson, but said nothing about
his long neglect of duty. Molly, who by this time knew the few
strong expressions of his countenance well, was sure that something
was the matter, and that he was very much disturbed. He hardly
attended to Mrs. Gibson's fluent opening of conversation, for she had
already determined to make a favourable impression on the father of
the handsome young man who was heir to an estate, besides his own
personal agreeableness; but he turned to Molly, and, addressing her,
said--almost in a low voice, as if he was making a confidence to her
that he did not intend Mrs. Gibson to hear,--

'Molly, we are all wrong at home! Osborne has lost the fellowship at
Trinity he went back to try for. Then he has gone and failed
miserably in his degree, after all that he said, and that his mother
said; and I, like a fool, went and boasted about my clever son. I
can't understand it. I never expected anything extraordinary from
Roger; but Osborne--! And then it has thrown madam into one of her
bad fits of illness; and she seems to have a fancy for you, child!
Your father came to see her this morning. Poor thing, she's very
poorly, I'm afraid; and she told him how she should like to have you
about her, and he said I might fetch you. You'll come, won't you, my
dear? She's not a poor woman, such as many people think it's the
only charity to be kind to, but she's just as forlorn of woman's
care as if she was poor--worse, I dare say.'

'I'll be ready in ten minutes,' said Molly, much touched by the
squire's words and manner, never thinking of asking her stepmother's
consent, now that she had heard that her father had given his. As
she rose to leave the room, Mrs. Gibson, who had only half heard what
the squire had said, and was a little affronted at the exclusiveness
of his confidence, said,--'My dear, where are you going?'

'Mrs. Hamley wants me, and papa says I may go,' said Molly; and
almost at the same time the squire replied,--

'My wife is ill, and as she's very fond of your daughter, she begged
Mr. Gibson to allow her to come to the Hall for a little while, and
he kindly said she might, and I'm come to fetch her.'

'Stop a minute, darling,' said Mrs. Gibson to Molly--a slight cloud
over her countenance, in spite of her caressing word. 'I am sure
dear papa quite forgot that you were to go out with me to-night, to
visit people,' continued she, addressing herself to the squire,
'with whom I am quite unacquainted--and it is very uncertain if Mr
Gibson can return in time to go with me--so, you see, I cannot allow
Molly to go with you.'

'I shouldn't have thought it would have signified. Brides are always
brides, I suppose; and it's their part to be timid; but I shouldn't
have thought it--in this case. And my wife sets her heart on things,
as sick people do. Well, Molly' (in a louder tone, for these
foregoing sentences were spoken ~sotto voce~), 'we must put it off
till to-morrow: and it's our loss, not yours,' he continued, as he
saw the reluctance with which she slowly returned to her place.
'You'll be as gay as can be to-night, I dare say--'

'No, I shall not,' broke in Molly. 'I never wanted to go, and now I
shall want it less than ever.'

'Hush, my dear,' said Mrs. Gibson; and, addressing the squire, she
added, 'The visiting here is not all one could wish for so young a
girl--no young people, no dances, nothing of gaiety; but it is wrong
in you, Molly, to speak against such kind friends of your father's
as I understand these Cockerells are. Don't give so bad an
impression of yourself to the kind squire.'

'Let her alone! let her alone!' quoth he. 'I see what she means.
She'd rather come and be in my wife's sick-room than go out for this
visit to-night. Is there no way of getting her off?'

'None whatever,' said Mrs. Gibson. 'An engagement is an engagement
with me; and I consider that she is not only engaged to Mrs
Cockerell, but to me--bound to accompany me, in my husband's
absence.'

The squire was put out; and when he was put out he had a trick of
placing his hands on his knees and whistling softly to himself.
Molly knew this phase of his displeasure, and only hoped he would
confine himself to this wordless expression of annoyance. It was
pretty hard work for her to keep the tears out of her eyes; and she
endeavoured to think of something else, rather than dwell on regrets
and annoyances. She heard Mrs. Gibson talking on in a sweet monotone,
and wished to attend to what she was saying, but the squire's
visible annoyance struck sharper on her mind. At length, after a
pause of silence, he started up, and said,--

'Well! it's no use. Poor madam; she won't like it. She'll be
disappointed! But it's but for one evening!--but for one evening!
She may come to-morrow, mayn't she? Or will the dissipation of such
an evening as she describes, be too much for her?'

There was a touch of savage irony in his manner which frightened Mrs
Gibson into good behaviour.

'She shall be ready at any time you name. I am so sorry: my foolish
shyness is in fault, I believe; but still you must acknowledge that
an engagement is an engagement.'

'Did I ever say an engagement was an elephant, madam? However,
there's no use saying any more about it, or I shall forget my
manners. I'm an old tyrant, and she--lying there in bed, poor
girl--has always given me my own way. So you'll excuse me, Mrs
Gibson, won't you; and let Molly come along with me at ten to-morrow
morning?'

'Certainly,' said Mrs. Gibson, smiling. But when his back was turned,
she said to Molly,--

'Now, my dear, I must never have you exposing me to the ill-manners
of such a man again! I don't call him a squire; I call him a boor,
or a yeoman at best. You must not go on accepting or rejecting
invitations as if you were an independent young lady, Molly. Pay me
the respect of a reference to my wishes another time, if you please,
my dear!'

'Papa had said I might go,' said Molly, choking a little.

'As I am now your mamma your references must be to me, for the
future. But as you are to go you may as well look well dressed. I
will lend you my new shawl for this visit, if you like it, and my
set of green ribbons. I am always indulgent when proper respect is
paid to me. And in such a house as Hamley Hall, no one can tell who
may be coming and going, even if there is sickness in the family.'

'Thank you. But I don't want the shawl and the ribbons, please:
there will be nobody there except the family. There never is, I
think; and now that she is so ill'--Molly was on the point of crying
at the thought of her friend lying ill and lonely, and looking for
her arrival. Moreover, she was sadly afraid lest the squire had gone
off with the idea that she did not want to come--that she preferred
that stupid, stupid party at the Cockerells'. Mrs. Gibson, too, was
sorry; she had an uncomfortable consciousness of having given way to
temper before a stranger, and a stranger, too, whose good opinion
she had meant to cultivate: and she was also annoyed at Molly's
tearful face.

'What can I do for you, to bring you back into good temper?' she
said. 'First, you insist upon your knowing Lady Harriet better than
I do--I, who have known her for eighteen or nineteen years at least.
Then you jump at invitations without ever consulting me, or thinking
of how awkward it would be for me to go stumping into a drawing-room
all by myself; following my new name, too, which always makes me
feel uncomfortable, it is such a sad come-down after Kirkpatrick!
And then, when I offer you some of the prettiest things I have got,
you say it does not signify how you are dressed. What can I do to
please you, Molly? I, who delight in nothing more than peace in a
family, to see you sitting there with despair upon your face?'

Molly could stand it no longer; she went upstairs to her own
room--her own smart new room, which hardly yet seemed a familiar
place; and began to cry so heartily and for so long a time, that she
stopped at length for very weariness. She thought of Mrs. Hamley
wearying for her; of the old Hall whose very quietness might become
oppressive to an ailing person; of the trust the squire had had in
her that she would come off directly with him. And all this
oppressed her much more than the querulousness of her stepmother's
words.

CHAPTER XVII

TROUBLE AT HAMLEY HALL

If Molly thought that peace dwelt perpetually at Hamley Hall she was
sorely mistaken. Something was out of tune in the whole
establishment; and, for a very unusual thing, the common irritation
seemed to have produced a common bond. All the servants were old in
their places, and were told by some one of the family, or gathered,
from the unheeded conversation carried on before them, everything
that affected master or mistress or either of the young gentlemen.
Any one of them could have told Molly that the grievance which lay
at the root of everything, was the amount of the bills run up by
Osborne at Cambridge, and which, now that all chance of his
obtaining a fellowship was over, came pouring down upon the squire.
But Molly, confident of being told by Mrs. Hamley herself anything
which she wished her to hear, encouraged no confidences from any one
else.

She was struck with the change in 'madam's' looks as soon as she
caught sight of her in the darkened room, lying on the sofa in her
dressing-room, all dressed in white, which almost rivalled the white
wanness of her face. The squire ushered Molly in with,--

'Here she is at last!' and Molly had scarcely imagined that he had
so much variety in the tones of his voice--the beginning of the
sentence was spoken in a loud congratulatory manner, while the last
words were scarcely audible. He had seen the death-like pallor on
his wife's face; not a new sight, and one which had been presented
to him gradually enough, but which was now always giving him a fresh
shock. It was a lovely tranquil winter's day; every branch and every
twig of the trees and shrubs were glittering with drops of the
sun-melted hoarfrost; a robin was perched on a holly-bush, piping
cheerily; but the blinds were down, and out of Mrs. Hamley's windows
nothing of all this was to be seen. There was even a large screen
placed between her and the wood-fire, to keep off that cheerful
blaze. Mrs. Hamley stretched out one hand to Molly, and held hers
firm; with the other she shaded her eyes.

'She is not so well this morning,' said the squire, shaking his
head. 'But never fear, my dear one; here's the doctor's daughter,
nearly as good as the doctor himself. Have you had your medicine?
Your beef-tea?' he continued, going about on heavy tiptoe and
peeping into every empty cup and glass. Then he returned to the
sofa; looked at her for a minute or two, and then softly kissed her,
and told Molly he would leave her in charge.

As if Mrs. Hamley was afraid of Molly's remarks or questions, she
began in her turn a hasty system of interrogatories.

'Now, dear child, tell me all; it's no breach of confidence, for I
shan't mention it again, and I shan't be here long. How does it all
go on--the new mother, the good resolutions? let me help you if I
can. I think with a girl I could have been of use--a mother does not
know boys. But tell me anything you like and will; don't be afraid
of details.'

Even with Molly's small experience of illness she saw how much of
restless fever there was in this speech; and instinct, or some such
gift, prompted her to tell a long story of many things--the
wedding-day, her visit to Miss Brownings', the new furniture, Lady
Harriet, &c., all in an easy flow of talk which was very soothing to
Mrs. Hamley, inasmuch as it gave her something to think about beyond
her own immediate sorrows. But Molly did not speak of her own
grievances, nor of the new domestic relationship. Mrs. Hamley noticed
this.

'And you and Mrs. Gibson get on happily together?'

'Not always,' said Molly. 'You know we didn't know much of each
other before we were put to live together.'

'I didn't like what the squire told me last night. He was very
angry.'

That sore had not yet healed over; but Molly resolutely kept
silence, beating her brains to think of some other subject of
conversation.

'Ah! I see, Molly,' said Mrs. Hamley; 'you won't tell me your
sorrows, and yet, perhaps, I could have done you some good.'

'I don't like,' said Molly, in a low voice. 'I think papa wouldn't
like it. And, besides, you have helped me so much--you and Mr. Roger
Hamley. I often, often think of the things he said. they come in so
usefully, and are such a strength to me.'

'Ah, Roger! yes. He is to be trusted. Oh, Molly! I've a great deal
to say to you myself, only not now. I must have my medicine and try
to go to sleep. Good girl! You are stronger than I am, and can do
without sympathy.'

Molly was taken to another room; the maid who conducted her to it
told her that Mrs. Hamley had not wished her to have her nights
disturbed, as they might very probably have been if she had been in
her former sleeping-room. In the afternoon Mrs. Hamley sent for her,
and with the want of reticence common to invalids, especially to
those suffering from long and depressing maladies, she told Molly of
the family distress and disappointment.

She made Molly sit down near her on a little stool, and, holding her
hand, and looking into her eyes to catch her spoken sympathy from
their expression quicker than she could from her words, she said,--

'Osborne has so disappointed us! I cannot understand it yet. And the
squire was so terribly angry! I cannot think how all the money was
spent--advances through money-lenders, besides bills. The squire
does not show me how angry he is now, because he's afraid of another
attack; but I know how angry he is. You see he has been spending
ever so much money in reclaiming that land at Upton Common, and is
very hard pressed himself. But it would have doubled the value of
the estate, and so we never thought anything of economics which
would benefit Osborne in the long run. And now the squire says he
must mortgage some of the land; and you can't think how it cuts him
to the heart. He sold a great deal of timber to send the two boys to
college. Osborne--oh! what a dear, innocent boy he was: he was the
heir, you know; and he was so clever, every one said he was sure of
honours and a fellowship, and I don't know what all; and he did get
a scholarship, and then all went wrong. I don't know how. That is
the worst. Perhaps the squire wrote too angrily, and that stopped up
confidence. But he might have told me. He would have done, I think,
Molly, if he had been here, face to face with me. But the squire, in
his anger, told him not to show his face at home till he had paid
off the debts he had incurred out of his allowance. Out of two
hundred and fifty a year to pay off more than nine hundred, one way
or another! And not to come home till then! Perhaps Roger will have
debts too! He had but two hundred; but, then, he was not the eldest
son. The squire has given orders that the men are to be turned off
the draining-works; and I lie awake thinking of their poor families
this wintry weather. But what shall we do? I've never been strong,
and, perhaps, I've been extravagant in my habits; and there were
family traditions as to expenditure, and the reclaiming of this
land. Oh! Molly, Osborne was such a sweet little baby, and such a
loving boy: so clever, too! You know I read you some of his poetry:
now, could a person who wrote like that do anything very wrong? And
yet I'm afraid he has.'

'Don't you know, at all, how the money has gone?' asked Molly.

'No! not at all. That's the sting. There are tailors' bills, and
bills for book-binding and wine and pictures--that come to four or
five hundred; and though this expenditure is extraordinary--
inexplicable to such simple folk as we are--yet it may be only the
luxury of the present day. But the money for which he will give no
account,--of which, indeed, we only heard through the squire's
London agents, who found out that certain disreputable attorneys
were making inquiries as to the entail of the estate,--oh! Molly,
worse than all--I don't know how to bring myself to tell you--as to
the age and health of the squire, his dear father'--(she began to
sob almost hysterically; yet she would go on talking, in spite of
Molly's efforts to stop her)--'who held him in his arms, and blessed
him, even before I had kissed him; and thought always so much of him
as his heir and first-born darling. How he has loved him! How I have
loved him! I sometimes have thought of late that we've almost done
that good Roger injustice.'

'No! I'm sure you've not: only look at the way he loves you. Why,
you are his first thought: he may not speak about it, but any one
may see it. And dear, dear Mrs. Hamley,' said Molly, determined to
say out all that was in her mind now that she had once got the word,
'don't you think that it would be better not to misjudge Mr. Osborne
Hamley? We don't know what he has done with the money: he is so good
(is he not?) that he may have wanted it to relieve some poor
person--some tradesman, for instance, pressed by creditors--some--'

'You forget, dear,' said Mrs. Hamley, smiling a little at the girl's
impetuous romance, but sighing the next instant, 'that all the other
bills come from tradesmen, who complain piteously of being kept out
of their money.'

Molly was nonplussed for the moment; but then she said,--

'I daresay they imposed upon him. I'm sure I've heard stories of
young men being made regular victims of by the shopkeepers in great
towns.'

'You're a great darling, child,' said Mrs. Hamley, comforted by
Molly's strong partisanship, unreasonable and ignorant though it
was.

'And, besides,' continued Molly, 'some one must be acting wrongly in
Osborne's--Mr. Osborne Hamley's, I mean--I can't help saying Osborne
sometimes, but, indeed, I always think of him as Mr. Osborne--'

'Never mind, Molly, what you call him; only go on talking. It seems
to do me good to have the hopeful side taken. The squire has been so
hurt and displeased: strange-looking men coming into the
neighbourhood, too, questioning the tenants, and grumbling about the
last fall of timber, as if they were calculating on the squire's
death.'

'That's just what I was going to speak about. Doesn't it show that
they are bad men? and would bad men scruple to impose upon him, and
to tell lies in his name, and to ruin him?'

'Don't you see, you only make him out weak, instead of wicked?'

'Yes; perhaps I do. But I don't think he is weak. You know yourself,
dear Mrs. Hamley, how very clever he really is. Besides, I would
rather he was weak than wicked. Weak people may find themselves all
at once strong in heaven, when they see things quite clearly; but I
don't think the wicked will turn themselves into virtuous people all
at once.'

'I think I've been very weak, Molly,' said Mrs. Hamley, stroking
Molly's curls affectionately. 'I've made such an idol of my
beautiful Osborne; and he turns out to have feet of clay, not strong
enough to stand firm on the ground. And that's the best view of his
conduct, too!'

What with his anger against his son, and his anxiety about his wife:
the difficulty of raising the money immediately required, and his
irritation at the scarce-concealed inquiries made by strangers as to
the value of his property, the poor squire was in a sad state. He
was angry and impatient with every one who came near him; and then
was depressed at his own violent temper and unjust words. The old
servants, who, perhaps, cheated him in many small things, were
beautifully patient under his upbraidings. They could understand
bursts of passion, and knew the cause of his variable moods as well
as he did himself. The butler, who was accustomed to argue with his
master about every fresh direction as to his work, now nudged Molly
at dinner-time to make her eat of some dish which she had just been
declining, and explained his conduct afterwards as follows,--

'You see, miss, me and cook had planned a dinner as would tempt
master to cat; but when you say, "No, thank you," when I hand you
anything, master never so much as looks at it. But if you takes a
thing, and cats with a relish, why first he waits, and then he
looks, and by-and-by he smells; and then he finds out as he's
hungry, and falls to eating as natural as a kitten takes to mewing.
That's the reason, miss, as I gave you a nudge and a wink, which no
one knows better nor me was not manners.'

Osborne's name was never mentioned during these tete-a-tete meals.
The squire asked Molly questions about Hollingford people, but did
not seem much to attend to her answers. He used also to ask her
every day how she thought that his wife was; but if Molly told the
truth--that every day seemed to make her weaker and weaker--he was
almost savage with the girl. He could not bear it; and he would not.
Nay, once he was on the point of dismissing Mr. Gibson because he
insisted on a consultation with Dr Nicholls, the great physician of
the county.

'It's nonsense thinking her so ill as that--you know it's only the
delicacy she's had for years; and if you can't do her any good in
such a simple case--no pain--only weakness and nervousness--it is a
simple case, eh?--don't look in that puzzled way, man!--you'd better
give her up altogether, and I'll take her to Bath or Brighton,' or
somewhere for change, for in my opinion it's only moping and
nervousness.'

But the squire's bluff florid face was pinched with anxiety, and
worn with the effort of being deaf to the footsteps of fate as he
said these words which belied his fears.

Mr. Gibson replied very quietly,--

'I shall go on coming to see her, and I know you will not forbid my
visits. But I shall bring Dr Nicholls with me the next time I come.
I may be mistaken in my treatment; and I wish to God he may say I am
mistaken in my apprehensions.'

'Don't tell me them! I cannot hear them!' cried the squire. 'Of
course we must all die; and she must too. But not the cleverest
doctor in England shall go about coolly meting out the life of such
as her. I dare say I shall die first. I hope I shall. But I'll knock
any one down who speaks to me of the death sitting within me. And,
besides, I think all doctors are ignorant quacks, pretending to
knowledge they haven't got. Ay, you may smile at me. I don't care.
Unless you can tell me I shall die first, neither you nor your Dr
Nicholls shall come prophesying and croaking about this house.'

Mr. Gibson went away, heavy at heart at the thought of Mrs. Hamley's
approaching death, but thinking little enough of the squire's
speeches. He had almost forgotten them, in fact, when about nine
o'clock that evening, a groom rode in from Hamley Hall in hot haste,
with a note from the squire.

DEAR GIBSON,--For God's sake forgive me if I was rude to-day. She is
much worse. Come and spend the night here. Write for Nicholls, and
all the physicians you want. Write before you start off here. They
may give her ease. There were Whitworth doctors much talked of in my
youth for curing people given up by the regular doctors; can't you
get one of them? I put myself in your hands. Sometimes I think it is
the turning point, and she'll rally after this bout. I trust all to
you.

Yours ever,

R. HAMLEY.

P.S.--Molly is a treasure.--God help me!

Of course Mr. Gibson went; for the first time since his marriage
cutting short Mrs. Gibson's querulous lamentations over her life, as
involved in that of a doctor called out at all hours of day and
night.

He brought Mrs. Hamley through this attack; and for a day or two the
squire's alarm and gratitude made him docile in Mr. Gibson's hands.
Then he returned to the idea of its being a crisis through which his
wife had passed; and that she was now on the way to recovery. But
the day after the consultation with Dr Nicholls, Mr. Gibson said to
Molly,--

'Molly! I've written to Osborne and Roger. Do you know Osborne's
address?'

'No, papa. He's in disgrace. I don't know if the squire knows; and
she has been too ill to write.'

'Never mind. I'll enclose it to Roger; whatever those lads may be to
others, there's as strong brotherly love as ever I saw, between the
two. Roger will know. And, Molly, they are sure to come home as soon
as they hear my report of their mother's state. I wish you'd tell
the squire what I've done. It's not a pleasant piece of work; and
I'll tell madam myself in my own way. I'd have told him if he'd been
at home; but you say he was obliged to go to Ashcombe on business.'

'Quite obliged. He was so sorry to miss you. But, papa, he will be
so angry! You don't know how mad he is against Osborne.'

Molly dreaded the squire's anger when she gave him her father's
message. She had seen quite enough of the domestic relations of the
Hamley family to understand that, underneath his old-fashioned
courtesy, and the pleasant hospitality he showed to her as a guest,
there was a strong will, and a vehement passionate temper, along
with that degree of obstinacy in prejudices (or 'opinions,' as he
would have called them) so common to those who have, neither in
youth nor in manhood, mixed largely with their kind. She had
listened, day after day, to Mrs. Hamley's plaintive murmurs as to the
deep disgrace in which Osborne was being held by his father--the
prohibition of his coming home; and she hardly knew how to begin to
tell him that the letter summoning Osborne had already been sent
off.

Their dinners were ~tete-a-tete~. The squire tried to
make them pleasant to Molly, feeling deeply grateful to her for the
soothing comfort she was to his wife. He made merry speeches, which
sank away into silence, and at which they each forgot to smile. He
ordered up rare wines, which she did not care for, but tasted out of
complaisance. He noticed that one day she had eaten some brown
~buerre~ pears as if she liked them; and as his trees had not
produced many this year, he gave directions that this particular
kind should be sought for through the neighbourhood. Molly felt
that, in many ways, he was full of good-will towards her; but it did
not diminish her dread of touching on the one sore point in the
family. However, it had to be done, and that without delay.

The great log was placed on the after-dinner fire, the hearth swept
up, the ponderous candles snuffed, and then the door was shut, and
Molly and the squire were left to their dessert. She sate at the
side of the table in her old place. That at the head was vacant; yet
as no orders had been given to the contrary, the plate and glasses
and napkin were always arranged as regularly and methodically as if
Mrs. Hamley would come in as usual. Indeed, sometimes, when the door
by which she used to enter was opened by any chance, Molly caught
herself looking round as if she expected to see the tall, languid
figure in the elegant draperies of rich silk and soft lace, which
Mrs. Hamley was wont to wear of an evening.

This evening, it struck her, as a new thought of pain, that into
that room she would come no more. She had fixed to give her father's
message at this very point of time; but something in her throat
choked her, and she hardly knew how to govern her voice. The squire
got up and went to the broad fire-place, to strike into the middle
of the great log, and split it up into blazing, sparkling pieces.
His back was towards her. Molly began, 'When papa was here to-day,
he bade me tell you he had written to Mr. Roger Hamley to say
that--that he thought he had better come home; and he enclosed a
letter to Mr. Osborne Hamley to say the same thing.'

The squire put down the poker, but he still kept his back to Molly.

'He sent for Osborne and Roger?' he asked, at length.

Molly answered, 'Yes.'

Then there was a dead silence, which Molly thought would never end.
The squire had placed his two hands on the high chimney-piece, and
stood leaning over the fire.

'Roger would have been down from Cambridge on the 18th,' said he.
'And he has sent for Osborne, too! Did he know,'--he continued,
turning round to Molly, with something of the fierceness she had
anticipated in voice and look. In another moment he had dropped his
voice. 'It is right, quite right. I understand. It has come at
length. Come! come! Osborne has brought it on, though,' with a fresh
access of anger in his tones. 'She might have' (some word Molly
could not hear--she thought it sounded like 'lingered') 'but for
that. I cannot forgive him; I cannot.'

And then he suddenly left the room. While Molly sate there still,
very sad in her sympathy with all, he put his head in again,--

'Go to her, my dear; I cannot--not just yet. But I will soon. Just
this bit; and after that I won't lose a moment. You are a good girl.
God bless you!'

It is not to be supposed that Molly had remained all this time at
the Hall without interruption. Once or twice her father had brought
her a summons home. Molly thought she could perceive that he had
brought it unwillingly; in fact, it was Mrs. Gibson that had sent for
her, almost, as it were, to preserve a 'right of way' through her
actions.

'You shall come back to-morrow, or the next day,' her father had
said. 'But mamma seems to think people will put a bad construction
on your being so much way from home so soon after our marriage.'

'Oh, papa, I'm afraid Mrs. Hamley will miss me! I do so like being
with her.'

'I don't think it is likely she will miss you as much as she would
have done a month or two ago. She sleeps so much now, that she is
scarcely conscious of the lapse of time. I'll see that you come back
here again in a day or two.'

So out of the silence and the soft melancholy of the Hall Molly
returned into the all-pervading element of chatter and gossip at
Hollingford. Mrs. Gibson received her kindly enough. Once' she had a
smart new winter bonnet ready to give her as a present; but she did
not care to hear any particulars about the friends whom Molly had
just left; and her few remarks on the state of affairs at the Hall
jarred terribly on the sensitive Molly.

'What a time she lingers! Your papa never expected she would last
half so long after that attack. It must be very wearing work to them
all; I declare you look quite another creature since you went there.
One can only wish it mayn't last, for their sakes.'

'You don't know how the squire values every minute,' said Molly.

'Why, you say she sleeps a great deal, and doesn't talk much when
she's awake, and there's not the slightest hope for her. And yet, at
such times, people are kept on the tenterhooks with watching and
waiting. I know it by my dear Kirkpatrick. There really were days
when I thought it never would end. But we won't talk any more of
such dismal things; you've had quite enough of them, I'm sure, and
it always makes me melancholy to hear of illness and death; and yet
your papa seems sometimes as if he could talk of nothing else. I'm
going to take you out to-night, though, and that will give you
something of a change; and I've been getting Miss Rose to trim up
one of my old gowns for you; it's too tight for me. There's some
talk of dancing,--it's at Mrs. Edward's.'

'Oh, mamma, I cannot go!' cried Molly. 'I've been so much with her;
and she may be suffering so, or even dying--and I to be dancing!'

'Nonsense! You're no relation, so you need not feel it so much. I
wouldn't urge you, if she was likely to know about it and be hurt;
but as it is, it's all fixed that you are to go; and don't let us
have any nonsense about it. We might sit twirling our thumbs, and
repeating hymns all our lives long, if we were to do nothing else
when people were dying.'

'I cannot go,' repeated Molly. And, acting upon impulse, and almost
to her own surprise, she appealed to her father, who came into the
room at this very time. He contracted his dark eyebrows, and looked
annoyed as both wife and daughter poured their different sides of
the argument into his ears. He sate down in desperation of patience.
When his turn came to pronounce a decision, he said,--

'I suppose I can have some lunch? I went away at six this morning,
and there's nothing in the dining-room. I have to go off again
directly.'

Molly started to the door; Mrs. Gibson made haste to ring the bell.

'Where are you going, Molly?' said she, sharply.

'Only to see about papa's lunch.'

'There are servants to do it; and I don't like your going into the
kitchen.'

'Come, Molly! sit down and be quiet,' said her father. 'One comes
home wanting peace and quietness--and food too. If I am to be
appealed to, which I beg I may not be another time, I settle that
Molly stops home this evening. I shall come back late and tired. See
that I have something ready to cat, goosey, and then I'll dress
myself up in my best, and go and fetch you home, my dear. I wish all
these wedding festivities were well over. Ready, is it? Then I'll go
into the dining-room and gorge myself. A doctor ought to be able to
eat like a camel, or like Major Dugald Dalgetty.'

It was well for Molly that callers came in just at this time, for
Mrs. Gibson was extremely annoyed. They told her some little local
piece of news, however, which filled up her mind; and Molly found
that, if she only expressed wonder enough at the engagement they had
both heard of from the departed callers, the previous discussion as
to her accompanying her stepmother or not might be entirely passed
over. Not entirely though; for the next morning she had to listen to
a very brilliantly touched-up account of the dance and the gaiety
which she had missed; and also to be told that Mrs. Gibson had
changed her mind about giving her the gown, and thought now that she
should reserve it for Cynthia, if only it was long enough; but
Cynthia was so tall--quite overgrown, in fact. The chances seemed
equally balanced as to whether Molly might not have the gown after
all.

CHAPTER XVIII

MR OSBORNE'S SECRET

Osborne and Roger came to the Hall; Molly found Roger established
there when she returned after this absence at home. She gathered
that Osborne was coming; but very little was said about him in any
way. The Squire scarcely ever left his wife's room now; he sat by
her, watching her, and now and then moaning to himself. She was so
much under the influence of opiates that she did not often rouse up;
but when she did, she almost invariably asked for Molly. On these rare
occasions, she would ask after Osborne--where he was, if he had been
told, and if he was coming? In her weakened and confused state of
intellect she seemed to have retained two strong impressions--one,
of the sympathy with which Molly had received her confidence about
Osborne; the other, of the anger which her husband entertained
against him. Before the squire she never mentioned Osborne's name;
nor did she seem at her case in speaking about him to Roger; while,
when she was alone with Molly, she hardly spoke of any one else.
She must have had some sort of wandering idea that Roger blamed his
brother, while she remembered Molly's eager defence, which she had
thought hopelessly improbable at the time. At any rate she made
Molly her confidante about her first-born. She sent her to ask
Roger how soon he would come, for she seemed to know perfectly
well that he was coming.

'Tell me all Roger says. He will tell you.'

But it was several days before Molly could ask Roger any questions;
and meanwhile Mrs. Hamley's state had materially altered. At length
Molly came upon Roger sitting in the library, his head buried in his
hands. He did not hear her footstep till she was close beside him.
Then he lifted up his face, red, and stained with tears, his hair
all ruffled up and in disorder.

'I've been wanting to see you alone,' she began. 'Your mother does
so want some news of your brother Osborne. She told me last week to
ask you about him, but I did not like to speak of him before your
father.'

'She has hardly ever named him to me.'

'I don't know why; for to me she used to talk of him perpetually. I
have seen so little of her this week, and I think she forgets a
great deal now. Still, if you don't mind, I should like to be able
to tell her something if she asks me again.'

He put his head again between his hands, and did not answer her for
some time.

'What does she want to know?' said he, at last. 'Does she know that
Osborne is coming soon--any day?'

'Yes. But she wants to know where he is.'

'I can't tell you. I don't exactly know. I believe he's abroad, but
I'm not sure.'

'But you've sent papa's letter to him?'

'I've sent it to a friend of his who will know better than I do
where he's to be found. You must know that he isn't free from
creditors, Molly. You can't have been one of the family, like a
child of the house almost, without knowing that much. For that and
for some other reasons I don't exactly know where he is.'

'I will tell her so. You are sure he will come?'

'Quite sure. But, Molly, I think my mother may live some time yet;
don't you? Dr Nicholls said so yesterday when he was here with your
father. He said she had rallied more than he had ever expected.
You're not afraid of any change that makes you so anxious for
Osborne's coming?'

'No. It's only for her that I asked. She did seem so to crave for
news of him. I think she dreamed of him; and then when she wakened
it was a relief to her to talk about him to me. She always seemed to
associate me with him. We used to speak so much of him when we were
together.'

'I don't know what we should any of us have done without you. You've
been like a daughter to my mother.'

'I do so love her,' said Molly, softly.

'Yes; I see. Have you ever noticed that she sometimes calls you
"Fanny"? It was the name of a little sister of ours who died. I
think she often takes you for her. It was partly that, and partly
that at such a time as this one can't stand on formalities, that
made me call you Molly. I hope you don't mind it?'

'No; I like it. But will you tell me something more about your
brother? She really hungers for news of him.'

'She'd better ask me herself. Yet, no! I am so involved by promises
of secrecy, Molly, that I couldn't satisfy her if she once began to
question me. I believe he's in Belgium, and that he went there about
a fortnight ago, partly to avoid his creditors. You know my father
has refused to pay his debts?'

'Yes; at least, I knew something like it.'

'I don't believe my father could raise the money all at once without
having recourse to steps which he would exceedingly recoil from. Yet
for the time it places Osborne in a very awkward position.'

'I think what vexes your father a good deal is some mystery as to
how the money was spent.'

'If my mother ever says anything about that part of the affair,'
said Roger, hastily, 'assure her from me that there's nothing of
vice or wrong-doing about it. I can't say more: I'm tied. But set
her mind at ease on this point.'

'I'm not sure if she remembers all her painful anxiety about this,'
said Molly. 'She used to speak a great deal to me about him before
you came, when your father seemed so angry. And now, whenever she
sees me she wants to talk on the old subject; but she doesn't
remember so clearly. If she were to see him I don't believe she
would recollect why she was uneasy about him while he was absent.'

'He must be here soon. I expect him every day,' said Roger,
uneasily.

'Do you think your father will be very angry with him?' asked Molly,
with as much timidity as if the squire's displeasure might be
directed against her.

'I don't know,' said Roger. 'My mother's illness may alter him; but
he didn't easily forgive us formerly. I remember once--but that is
nothing to the purpose. I can't help fancying that he has put
himself under some strong restraint for my mother's sake, and that
he won't express much. But it doesn't follow that he will forget it.
My father is a man of few affections, but what he has are very
strong; he feels anything that touches him on these points deeply
and permanently. That unlucky valuing of the property! It has given
my father the idea of post-obits--'

'What are they?' asked Molly.

'Raising money to be paid on my father's death, which, of course,
involves calculations as to the duration of his life.'

'How shocking!' said she.

'I'm as sure as I am of my own life that Osborne never did anything
of the kind. But my father expressed his suspicions in language that
irritated Osborne; and he doesn't speak out, and won't justify
himself even as much as he might; and, much as he loves me, I've but
little influence over him, or else he would tell my father all.
Well, we must leave it to time,' he added, sighing. 'My mother would
have brought us all right, if she'd been what she once was.'

He turned away leaving Molly very sad. She knew that every member of
the family she cared for so much was in trouble, out of which she
saw no exit; and her small power of helping them was diminishing day
by day as Mrs. Hamley sank more and more under the influence of
opiates and stupefying illness. Her father had spoken to her only
this very day of the desirableness of her returning home for good.
Mrs. Gibson wanted her--for no particular reason, but for many small
fragments of reasons. Mrs. Hamley had ceased to want her much, only
occasionally appearing to remember her existence. Her position (her
father thought--the idea had not entered her head) in a family of
which the only woman was an invalid confined to bed, was becoming
awkward. But Molly had begged hard to remain two or three days
longer--only that--only till Friday. If Mrs. Hamley should want her
(she argued, with tears in her eyes), and should hear that she had
left the house, she would think her so unkind, so ungrateful!

'My dear child, she's getting past wanting any one! The keenness of
earthly feelings is deadened.'

'Papa, that is worst of all. I cannot bear it. I won't believe it.
She may not ask for me again, and may quite forget me; but I'm sure,
to the very last, if the medicines don't stupefy her, she will look
round for the squire and her children. For poor Osborne most of all;
because he's in sorrow.'

Mr. Gibson shook his head, but said nothing in reply. In a minute or
two he asked,--

'I don't like to take you away while you even fancy you can be of
use or comfort to one who has been so kind to you. But, if she
hasn't wanted you before Friday, will you be convinced, will you
come home willingly?'

'If I go then, I may see her once again, even if she hasn't asked
for me?' inquired Molly.

'Yes, of course. You must make no noise, no step; but you may go in
and see her. I must tell you, I'm almost certain she won't ask for
you.'

'But she may, papa. I will go home on Friday, if she has not. I
think she will.'

So Molly hung about the house, trying to do all she could out of the
sick-room, for the comfort of those in it. They only came out for
meals, or for necessary business, and found little time for talking
to her, so her life was solitary enough, waiting for the call that
never came. The evening of the day on which she had had the above
conversation with Roger, Osborne arrived. He came straight into the
drawing-room, where Molly was seated on the rug, reading by
firelight, as she did not like to ring for candies merely for her
own use. Osborne came in, with a kind of hurry, which almost made
him appear as if he would trip himself up, and fall down. Molly
rose. He had not noticed her before; now he came forwards, and took
hold of both her hands, leading her into the full flickering light,
and straining his eyes to look into he