Molly was not in strong health, and perhaps this made her a little fanciful; but certain it is that her thoughts by day and her dreams by night were haunted by the idea of Roger lying ill and untended in those savage lands. Her constant prayer, 'O my Lord! give her the living child, and in no wise slay it,' came from a heart as true as that of the real mother in King Solomon's judgment. 'Let him live, let him live, even though I may never set eyes upon him again. Have pity upon his father! Grant that he may come home safe, and live happily with her whom he loves so tenderly—so tenderly, O God.' And then she would burst into tears, and drop asleep at last, sobbing.



CHAPTER XXXVIII

MR KIRKPATRICK, Q.C.

Cynthia was always the same with Molly: kind, sweet-tempered, ready to help, professing a great deal of love for her, and probably feeling as much as she did for any one in the world. But Molly had reached to this superficial depth of affection and intimacy in the first few weeks of Cynthia's residence in her father's house; and if she had been of a nature prone to analyse the character of one whom she loved dearly, she might have perceived that, with all Cynthia's apparent frankness, there were certain limits beyond which her confidence did not go; where her reserve began, and her real self was shrouded in mystery. For instance, her relations with Mr. Preston were often very puzzling to Molly. She was sure that there had been a much greater intimacy between them formerly at Ashcombe, and that the remembrance of this was often very galling and irritating to Cynthia, who was as evidently desirous of forgetting it as he was anxious to make her remember it. But why this intimacy had ceased, why Cynthia disliked him so extremely now, and many other unexplained circumstances connected with these two facts, were Cynthia's secrets; and she effectually baffled all Molly's innocent attempts during the first glow of her friendship for Cynthia, to learn the girlish antecedents of her companion's life. Every now and then Molly came to a dead wall, beyond which she could not pass—at least with the delicate instruments which were all she chose to use. Perhaps Cynthia might have told all there was to tell to a more forcible curiosity, which knew how to improve every slip of the tongue and every fit of temper to its own gratification. But Molly's was the interest of affection, not the coarser desire of knowing everything for a little excitement; and as soon as she saw that Cynthia did not wish to tell her anything about that period of her life, Molly left off referring to it. But if Cynthia had preserved a sweet tranquillity of manner and an unvarying kindness for Molly during the winter of which there is question, at present she was the only person to whom the beauty's ways were unchanged. Mr. Gibson's influence had been good for her as long as she saw that he liked her; she had tried to keep as high a place in his good opinion as she could, and had curbed many a little sarcasm against her mother, and many a twisting of the absolute truth when he was by. Now there was a constant uneasiness about her which made her more cowardly than before; and even her partisan, Molly, could not help being aware of the distinct equivocations she occasionally used when anything in Mr. Gibson's words or behaviour pressed her too hard. Her repartees to her mother were less frequent than they had been, but there was often the unusual phenomenon of pettishness in her behaviour to Mrs. Gibson. These changes in humour and disposition, here described all at once, were in themselves a series of delicate alterations of relative conduct spread over many months—many winter months of long evenings and bad weather, which bring out discords of character, as a dash of cold water brings out the fading colours of an old fresco.

During much of this time Mr. Preston had been at Ashcombe; for Lord Cumnor had not been able to find an agent whom he liked to replace Mr. Preston; and while the inferior situation remained vacant Mr Preston had undertaken to do the duties of both. Mrs. Goodenough had had a serious illness; and the little society at Hollingford did not care to meet while one of their habitual set was scarcely out of danger. So there had been very little visiting; and though Miss Browning said that the absence of the temptations of society was very agreeable to cultivated minds, after the dissipations of the previous autumn, when there were parties every week to welcome Mr Preston, yet Miss Phoebe let out in confidence that she and her sister had fallen into the habit of going to bed at nine o'clock, for they found cribbage night after night, from five o'clock till ten, rather too much of a good thing. To tell the truth, that winter, if peaceful, was monotonous in Hollingford; and the whole circle of gentility there was delighted to be stirred up in March by the intelligence that Mr. Kirkpatrick, the newly-made Q.C., was coming on a visit of a couple of days to his sister-in-law Mrs Gibson. Mrs. Goodenough's room was the very centre of gossip; gossip had been her daily bread through her life, gossip was meat and wine to her now.

'Dear-ah-me!' said the old lady, rousing herself so as to sit upright in her easy chair, and propping herself with her hands on the arms; 'who would ha' thought she'd such grand relations! Why, Mr Ashton told me once that a Queen's counsel was as like to be a judge as a kitten is like to be a cat. And to think of her being as good as a sister to a judge! I saw one oncst; and I know I thought as I should not wish for a better winter-cloak than his old robes would make me, if I could only find out where I could get them second-hand. And I know she'd her silk gowns turned and dyed and cleaned, and, for aught I know, turned again, while she lived at Ashcombe. Keeping a school, too, and so near akin to this Queen's counsel all the time! Well, to be sure, it was not much of a school—only ten young ladies at the best o' times; so perhaps he never heard of it.'

'I've been wondering what they'll give him to dinner,' said Miss Browning. 'It is an unlucky time for visitors; no game to be had, and lamb so late this year, and chicken hardly to be had for love or money.'

'He'll have to put up with calves-head, that he will,' said Mrs Goodenough, solemnly. 'If I'd ha' got my usual health I'd copy out a receipt of my grandmother's for a rolled calves-head,' and send it to Mrs. Gibson,—the doctor has been very kind to me all through this illness,—I wish my daughter in Combermere would send me some autumn chickens—I'd pass 'em on to the doctor, that I would; but she's been a-killing of 'em all, and a-sending of them to me, and the last she sent she wrote me word was the last.'

'I wonder if they'll give a party for him!' suggested Miss Phoebe. 'I should like to see a Queen's counsel for once in my life. I have seen javelin-men, but that's the greatest thing in the legal line I ever came across.'

'They'll ask Mr. Ashton, of course,' said Miss Browning. 'The three black graces, Law, Physic, and Divinity, as the song calls them.' Whenever there's a second course, there's always the clergyman of the parish invited in any family of gentility.'

'I wonder if he's married!' said Mrs. Goodenough. Miss Phoebe had been feeling the same wonder, but had not thought it maidenly to express it, even to her sister, who was the source of knowledge, having met Mrs. Gibson in the street on her way to Mrs. Goodenough's.

'Yes, he's married, and must have several children, for Mrs. Gibson said that Cynthia Kirkpatrick had paid them a visit in London, to have lessons with her cousins. And she said that his wife was a most accomplished woman, and of good family, though she brought him no fortune.'

'It's a very creditable connection, I'm sure; it's only a wonder to me as how we've heard so little talk of it before,' said Mrs Goodenough. 'At the first look of the thing, I should not ha' thought Mrs. Gibson was one to hide away her fine relations under a bushel; indeed for that matter we're all of us fond o' turning the best breadth o' the gown to the front. I remember, speaking o' breadths, how I've undone my skirts many a time and oft to put a stain or a grease-spot next to poor Mr. Goodenough. He'd a soft kind of heart when first we was married, and he said, says he, "Patty, link thy right arm into my left one, then thou'lt be nearer to my heart;" and so we kept up the habit, when, poor man, he'd a deal more to think on than romancing on which side his heart lay; so as I said I always put my damaged breadths on the right hand, and when we walked arm in arm, as we always did, no one was never the wiser.'

'I should not be surprised if he invited Cynthia to pay him another visit in London,' said Miss Browning. 'If he did it when he was poor, he's twenty times more likely to do it now he's a Queen's counsel.'

'Ay, work it by the rule o' three, and she stands a good chance. I only hope it won't turn her head; going up visiting in London at her age. Why, I was fifty before ever I went!'

'But she has been in France, she's quite a travelled young lady,' said Miss Phoebe.

Mrs. Goodenough shook her head, for a whole minute before she gave vent to her opinion.

'It's a risk,' said she, 'a great risk. I don't like saying so to the doctor, but I should not like having my daughter, if I was him, so cheek-by-jowl with a girl as was brought up in the country where Robespierre and Bonyparte was born.'

'But Buonaparte was a Corsican,' said Miss Browning, who was much farther advanced both in knowledge and in liberality of opinions than Mrs. Goodenough. 'And there's a great opportunity for cultivation of the mind afforded by intercourse with foreign countries. I always admire Cynthia's grace of manner, never too shy to speak, yet never putting herself forwards; she's quite a help to a party; and if she has a few airs and graces, why they're natural at her age! Now as for dear Molly, there's a kind of awkwardness about her—she broke one of our best china cups last time she was at a party at our house, and spilt the coffee on the new carpet; and then she got so confused that she hardly did anything but sit in a corner and hold her tongue all the rest of the evening.'

'She was so sorry for what she'd done, sister,' said Miss Phoebe, in a gentle tone of reproach; she was always faithful to Molly.

'Well, and did I say she wasn't? but was there any need for her to be stupid all the evening after?'

'But you were rather sharp,—rather displeased—'

'And I think it my duty to be sharp, ay, and cross too, when I see young folks careless. And when I see my duty clear I do it; I'm not one to shrink from it, and they ought to be grateful to me. It's not every one that will take the trouble of reproving them, as Mrs Goodenough knows. I'm very fond of Molly Gibson, very, for her own sake and for her mother's too; I'm not sure if I don't think she's worth half-a- dozen Cynthias, but for all that she should not break my best china tea-cup, and then sit doing nothing for her livelihood all the rest of the evening.'

By this time Mrs. Goodenough gave evident signs of being tired; Molly's misdemeanors and Miss Browning's broken teacup were not as exciting subjects of conversation as Mrs. Gibson's newly-discovered good luck in having a successful London lawyer for a relation.

Mr. Kirkpatrick had been, like many other men, struggling on in his profession, and encumbered with a large family of his own; he was ready to do a good turn for his connections, if it occasioned him no loss of time, and if (which was, perhaps, a primary condition) he remembered their existence. Cynthia's visit to Doughty Street nine or ten years ago had not made much impression upon him after he had once suggested its feasibility to his good-natured wife. He was even rather startled every now and then by the appearance of a pretty little girl amongst his own children, as they trooped in to dessert, and had to remind himself who she was. But as it was his custom to leave the table almost immediately and to retreat into a small back-room called his study, to immerse himself in papers for the rest of the evening, the child had not made much impression upon him; and probably the next time he remembered her existence was when Mrs. Kirkpatrick wrote to him to beg him to receive Cynthia for a night on her way to school at Boulogne. The same request was repeated on her return; but it so happened that he had not seen her either time; and only dimly remembered some remarks which his wife had made on one of these occasions, that it seemed to her rather hazardous to send so young a girl so long a journey without making more provision for her safety than Mrs. Kirkpatrick had done. He knew that his wife would fill up all deficiencies in this respect as if Cynthia had been her own daughter; and thought no more about her until he received an invitation to attend Mrs. Kirkpatrick's wedding with Mr. Gibson, the highly-esteemed surgeon of Hollingford, &c. &c.—an attention which irritated instead of pleasing him. 'Does the woman think I have nothing to do but run about the country in search of brides and bridegrooms, when this great case of Houghton v. Houghton is coming on, and I have not a moment to spare?' he asked of his wife.

'Perhaps she never heard of it,' suggested Mrs. Kirkpatrick.

'Nonsense! the case has been in the papers for days.'

'But she mayn't know you are engaged in it.'

'She mayn't,' said he, meditatively—such ignorance was possible.

But now the great case of Houghton v. Houghton was a thing of the past; the hard struggle was over, the comparative table-land of Q. C.-dom gained, and Mr. Kirkpatrick had leisure for family feeling and recollection. One day in the Easter vacation he found himself near Hollingford; he had a Sunday to spare, and he wrote to offer himself as a visitor to the Gibsons from Friday to Monday, expressing strongly (what he really felt, in a less degree,) his wish to make Mr. Gibson's acquaintance. Mr. Gibson, though often overwhelmed with professional business, was always hospitable; and moreover, it was always a pleasure to him to get out of the somewhat confined mental atmosphere which he had breathed over and over again, and have a whiff of fresh air: a glimpse of what was passing in the great world beyond his daily limits of thought and action. So he was ready to give a cordial welcome to his unknown relation. Mrs. Gibson was in a flutter of sentimental delight, which she fancied was family affection, but which might not have been quite so effervescent if Mr Kirkpatrick had remained in his former position of struggling lawyer, with seven children, living in Doughty Street.

When the two gentlemen met they were attracted towards each other by a similarity of character, with just enough difference in their opinions to make the experience of each, on which such opinions were based, valuable to the other. Mrs. Gibson, although the bond between them, counted for very little in their intercourse. Mr. Kirkpatrick paid her very polite attention; and was, in fact, very glad that she had done so well for herself as to marry a sensible and agreeable man, who was able to keep her in comfort, and to behave to her daughter in so liberal a manner. Molly struck him as a delicate-looking girl, who might be very pretty if she had had a greater look of health and animation: indeed, looking at her critically, there were beautiful points about her face— long soft grey eyes, black curling eyelashes, rarely-showing dimples, perfect teeth; but there was a languor over all, a slow depression of manner, which contrasted unfavourably with the brightly-coloured Cynthia, sparkling, quick, graceful, and witty. As Mr. Kirkpatrick expressed it afterwards to his wife, he was quite in love with that girl; and Cynthia, as ready to captivate strangers as any little girl of three or four, rose to the occasion, forgot all her cares and despondencies, remembered no longer her regret at having lost something of Mr. Gibson's good opinion, and listened eagerly and made soft replies, intermixed with naive sallies of droll humour, till Mr. Kirkpatrick was quite captivated. He left Hollingford, almost surprised to have performed a duty, and found it a pleasure. For Mrs. Gibson and Molly he had a general friendly feeling; but he did not care if he never saw them again. But for Mr. Gibson he had a warm respect, a strong personal liking, which he should be glad to have ripen into a friendship, if there was time for it in this bustling world. And he fully resolved to see more of Cynthia; his wife must know her; they must have her up to stay with them in London, and show her something of the world. But, on returning home, Mr. Kirkpatrick found so much work awaiting him that he had to lock up embryo friendships and kindly plans in some safe closet of his mind, and give himself up, body and soul, to the immediate work of his profession. But, in May, he found time to take his wife to the Academy Exhibition,' and some portrait there, striking him as being like Cynthia, he told his wife more about her and his visit to Hollingford than he had ever had leisure to do before; and the result was that on the next day a letter was sent off to Mrs. Gibson, inviting Cynthia to pay a visit to her cousins in London, and reminding her of many little circumstances that had occurred when she was with them as a child, so as to carry on the clue of friendship from that time to the present.

On its receipt this letter was greeted in various ways by the four people who sate round the breakfast-table. Mrs. Gibson read it to herself first. Then, without telling what its contents were, so that her auditors were quite in the dark as to what her remarks applied, she said,—

'I think they might have remembered that I am a generation nearer to them than she is, but nobody thinks of family affection now-a-days; and I liked him so much, and bought a new cookery-book, all to make it pleasant and agreeable and what he was used to.' She said all this in a plaintive, aggrieved tone of voice; but as no one knew to what she was referring, it was difficult to offer her consolation. Her husband was the first to speak.

'If you want us to sympathize with you, tell us what is the nature of your woe.'

'Why, I daresay it's what he means as a very kind attention, only I think I ought to have been asked before Cynthia,' said she, reading the letter over again.

'Who's he? and what's meant for a "kind attention"?'

'Mr. Kirkpatrick, to be sure. This letter is from him; and he wants Cynthia to go and pay them a visit, and never says anything about you or me, my dear. And I'm sure we did our best to make it pleasant; and he should have asked us first, I think.'

'As I could not possibly have gone, it makes very little difference to me.'

'But I could have gone; and, at any rate, he should have paid us the compliment: it's only a proper mark of respect, you know. So ungrateful, too, when I gave up my dressing-room on purpose for him!'

'And I dressed for dinner every day he was here, if we are each to recapitulate all our sacrifices on his behalf. But for all that I did not expect to be invited to his house. I shall be only too glad if he will come again to mine.'

'I've a great mind not to let Cynthia go,' said Mrs. Gibson, reflectively.

'I can't go, mamma,' said Cynthia, colouring. 'My gowns are all so shabby, and my old bonnet must do for this summer.'

'Well, but you can buy a new one; and I'm sure it is high time you should get yourself another silk-gown. You must have been saving up a great deal, for I don't know when you've had any new clothes.'

Cynthia began to say something, but stopped short. She went on buttering her toast, but she held it in her hand without eating it; without looking up either, as, after a minute or two of silence, she spoke again,—

'I cannot go. I should like it very much; but I really cannot go. Please, mamma, write at once, and refuse it.'

'Nonsense, child! When a man in Mr. Kirkpatrick's position comes forward to offer a favour, it does not do to decline it without giving a sufficient reason. So kind of him as it is, too!'

'Suppose you offer to go instead of me?' proposed Cynthia.

'No, no! that won't do,' said Mr. Gibson, decidedly. 'You can't transfer invitations in that way. But really this excuse about your clothes does appear to be very trivial, Cynthia, if you have no other reason to give.'

'It is a real, true reason to me,' said Cynthia, looking up at him as she spoke. 'You must let me judge for myself. It would not do to go there in a state of shabbiness, for even in Doughty Street, I remember, my aunt was very particular about dress; and now that Margaret and Helen are grown up, and they visit so much,—pray don't say anything more about it, for I know it would not do.'

'What have you done with all your money, I wonder?' said Mrs. Gibson. 'You've twenty pounds a year, thanks to Mr. Gibson and me; and I'm sure you haven't spent more than ten.'

'I had not many things when I came back from France,' said Cynthia, in a low voice, and evidently troubled by all this questioning. 'Pray let it be decided at once; I can't go, and there's an end of it.' She got up, and left the room rather suddenly.

'I don't understand it at all,' said Mrs. Gibson. 'Do you, Molly?'

'No. I know she does not like spending money on her dress, and is very careful.' Molly said this much, and then was afraid she had made mischief.

'But then she must have got the money somewhere. It always has struck me that if you have not extravagant habits, and do not live up to your income, you must have a certain sum to lay by at the end of the year. Have I not often said so, Mr. Gibson?'

'Probably.'

'Well, then, apply the same reasoning to Cynthia's case; and then, I ask, what has become of the money?'

'I cannot tell,' said Molly, seeing that she was appealed to. 'She may have given it away to some one who wants it.'

Mr. Gibson put down his newspaper.

'It is very clear that she has neither got the dress nor the money necessary for this London visit, and that she does not want any more inquiries to be made on the subject. She likes mysteries, in fact, and I detest them. Still, I think it is a desirable thing for her to keep up the acquaintance, or friendship, or whatever it is to be called, with her father's family; and I shall gladly give her ten pounds; and if that's not enough, why, either you must help her out, or she must do without some superfluous article of dress or another.'

'I'm sure there never was such a kind, dear, generous man as you are, Mr. Gibson,' said his wife. 'To think of your being a stepfather! and so good to my poor fatherless girl! But, Molly my dear, I think you'll acknowledge that you too are very fortunate in your stepmother. Are not you, love? And what happy tete-a-tetes we shall have together when Cynthia goes to London. I'm not sure if I don't get on better with you even than with her, though she is my own child; for, as dear papa says so truly, there is a love of mystery about her; and if I hate anything, it is the slightest concealment or reserve. Ten pounds! Why, it will quite set her up, buy her a couple of gowns and a new bonnet, and I don't know what all! Dear Mr. Gibson, how generous you are!'

Something very like 'Pshaw!' was growled out from behind the newspaper.

'May I go and tell her?' said Molly, rising up.

'Yes, do, love. Tell her it would be so ungrateful to refuse; and tell her that your father wishes her to go; and tell her, too, that it would be quite wrong not to avail herself of an opening which may by-and-by be extended to the rest of the family. I am sure if they ask me—which certainly they ought to do—I won't say before they asked Cynthia, because I never think of myself, and am really the most forgiving person in the world, in forgiving slights;—but when they do ask me, which they are sure to do, I shall never be content till, by putting in a little hint here and a little hint there, I've induced them to send you an invitation. A month or two in London would do you so much good, Molly.'

Molly had left the room before this speech was ended, and Mr. Gibson was occupied with his newspaper; but Mrs. Gibson finished it to herself very much to her own satisfaction; for, after all, it was better to have some one of the family going on the visit, though she might not be the right person, than to refuse it altogether, and never to have the opportunity of saying anything about it. As Mr Gibson was so kind to Cynthia, she too would be kind to Molly, and dress her becomingly, and invite young men to the house; do all the things, in fact, which Molly and her father did not want to have done, and throw the old stumbling- blocks in the way of their unrestrained intercourse, which was the one thing they desired to have, free and open, and without the constant dread of her jealousy.



CHAPTER XXXIX

SECRET THOUGHTS OOZE OUT

Molly found Cynthia in the drawing-room, standing in the bow-window, looking out on the garden. She started as Molly came up to her.

'Oh, Molly,' said she, putting her arms out towards her, 'I am always so glad to have you with me!'

It was outbursts of affection such as these that always called Molly back, if she had been ever so unconsciously wavering in her allegiance to Cynthia. She had been wishing downstairs that Cynthia would be less reserved, and not have so many secrets; but now it seemed almost like treason to have wanted her to be anything but what she was. Never had any one more than Cynthia the power spoken of by Goldsmith when he wrote,—

He threw off his friends like a huntsman his pack, For he knew when he liked he could whistle them back.'

'Do you know, I think you'll be glad to hear what I've got to tell you?' said Molly. 'I think you would really like to go to London; should not you?'

'Yes, but it is of no use liking,' said Cynthia. 'Don't you begin about it, Molly, for the thing is settled; and I can't tell you why, but I can't go.'

'It is only the money, dear. And papa has been so kind about it. He wants you to go; he thinks you ought to keep up relationships; and he is going to give you ten pounds.'

'How kind he is!' said Cynthia. 'But I ought not to take it. I wish I had known you years ago; I should have been different to what I am.'

'Never mind that! We like you as you are; we don't want you different. You'll really hurt papa if you don't take it. Why do you hesitate? Do you think Roger won't like it?'

'Roger! No, I was not thinking about him! Why should he care? I shall be there and back again before he even hears about it.'

'Then you will go?' said Molly.

Cynthia thought for a minute or two. 'Yes, I will,' said she, at length. 'I daresay it's not wise, but it will be pleasant, and I'll go. Where is Mr. Gibson? I want to thank him. Oh, how kind he is! Molly, you're a lucky girl!'

'I?' said Molly, quite startled at being told this; for she had been feeling as if so many things were going wrong, almost as if they would never go right again.

'There he is!' said Cynthia. 'I hear him in the hall!' And down she flew, and laying her hands on Mr. Gibson's arm, she thanked him with such warm impulsiveness, and in so pretty and caressing a manner, that something of his old feeling of personal liking for her returned, and he forgot for a time the causes of disapproval he had against her.

'There, there!' said he, 'that's enough, my dear! It is quite right you should keep up with your relations; there's nothing more to be said about it.'

'I do think your father is the most charming man I know,' said Cynthia, on her return to Molly; 'and it's that which always makes me so afraid of losing his good opinion, and fret go when I think he is displeased with me. And now let us think all about this London visit. It will be delightful, won't it? I can make ten pounds go ever so far; and in some ways it will be such a comfort to get out of Hollingford.'

'Will it?' said Molly, rather wistfully.

'Oh, yes! You know I don't mean that it will be a comfort to leave you; that will be anything but a comfort. But, after all, a country town is a country town, and London is London. You need not smile at my truisms; I've always had a sympathy with M. de la Palisse,—

'M. de la Palisse est mort En perdant sa vie; Un quart d'heure avant sa mort Il etait en vie,'

sang she, in so gay a manner that she puzzled Molly, as she often did, by her change of mood from the gloomy decision with which she had refused to accept the invitation only half an hour ago. She suddenly took Molly round the waist, and began waltzing round the room with her, to the imminent danger of the various little tables, loaded with 'objets d'art' (as Mrs. Gibson delighted to call them) with which the drawing-room was crowded. She avoided them, however, with her usual skill; but they both stood still at last, surprised at Mrs. Gibson's surprise, as she stood at the door, looking at the whirl going on before her.

'Upon my word, I only hope you are not going crazy, both of you? What's all this about, pray?'

'Only because I'm so glad I'm going to London, mamma,' said Cynthia, demurely.

'I'm not sure if it's quite the thing for an engaged young lady to be so much beside herself at the prospect of gaiety. In my time, our great pleasure in our lovers' absence was in thinking about them.'

'I should have thought that would have given you pain, because you would have had to remember that they were away, which ought to have made you unhappy. Now, to tell you the truth, just at the moment I had forgotten all about Roger. I hope it was not very wrong. Osborne looks as if he did all my share as well as his own of the fretting after Roger. How ill he looked yesterday!'

'Yes,' said Molly; 'I did not know if any one besides me had noticed it. I was quite shocked.'

'Ah,' said Mrs. Gibson, 'I'm afraid that young man won't live long— very much afraid,' and she shook her head ominously.

'Oh, what will happen if he dies!' exclaimed Molly, suddenly sitting down, and thinking of that strange, mysterious wife who never made her appearance, whose very existence was never spoken about—and Roger away too!

'Well, it would be very sad, of course, and we should all feel it very much, I've no doubt; for I've always been very fond of Osborne; in fact, before Roger became, as it were, my own flesh and blood, I liked Osborne better: but we must not forget the living, dear Molly' (for Molly's eyes were filling with tears at the dismal thoughts presented to her). 'Our dear good Roger would, I am sure, do all in his power to fill Osborne's place in every way; and his marriage need not be so long delayed.'

'Don't speak of that in the same breath as Osborne's life, mamma,' said Cynthia, hastily.

'Why, my dear, it is a very natural thought. For poor Roger's sake, you know, one wishes it not to be so very very long an engagement; and I was only answering Molly's question, after all. One can't help following out one's thoughts. People must die, you know—young, as well as old.'

'If I ever suspected Roger of following out his thoughts in a similar way,' said Cynthia, 'I'd never speak to him again.'

'As if he would!' said Molly, warm in her turn. 'You know he never would; and you should not suppose it of him, Cynthia—no, not even for a moment!'

'I can't see the great harm of it all, for my part,' said Mrs Gibson, plaintively. 'A young man strikes us all as looking very ill—and I'm sure I'm sorry for it; but illness very often leads to death. Surely you agree with me there, and what's the harm of saying so? Then Molly asks what will happen if he dies; and I try to answer her question. I don't like talking or thinking of death any more than any one else; but I should think myself wanting in strength of mind if I could not look forward to the consequences of death. I really think we're commanded to do so, somewhere in the Bible or the Prayer-book.'

'Do you look forward to the consequences of my death, mamma?' asked Cynthia.

'You really are the most unfeeling girl I ever met with,' said Mrs Gibson, really hurt. 'I wish I could give you a little of my own sensitiveness, for I have too much for my happiness. Don't let us speak of Osborne's looks again; ten to one it was only some temporary over- fatigue, or some anxiety about Roger, or perhaps a little fit of indigestion. I was very foolish to attribute it to anything more serious, and dear papa might be displeased if he knew I had done so. Medical men don't like other people to be making conjectures about health; they consider it as trenching on their own particular province, and very proper I'm sure. Now let us consider about your dress, Cynthia; I could not understand how you had spent your money, and made so little show with it.'

'Mamma, it may sound very cross, but I must tell Molly and you, and everybody, once for all, that as I don't want and did not ask for more than my allowance, I'm not going to answer any questions about what I do with it.' She did not say this with any want of respect; but she said it with quiet determination, which subdued her mother for the time, though often afterwards when Mrs. Gibson and Molly were alone, the former would start the wonder as to what Cynthia could possibly have done with her money, and hunt each poor conjecture through woods and valleys of doubt, till she was wearied out;' and the exciting sport was given up for the day. At present, however, she confined herself to the practical matter in hand; and the genius for millinery and dress, inherent in both mother and daughter, soon settled a great many knotty points of contrivance and taste, and then they all three set to work to 'gar auld claes look amaist as weel's the new.'

Cynthia's relations with the squire had been very stationary ever since the visit she had paid to the Hall the previous autumn. He had received them all at that time with hospitable politeness, and he had also been more charmed with Cynthia than he liked to acknowledge to himself when he thought the visit all over afterwards.

'She's a pretty lass sure enough,' thought he, 'and has pretty ways about her too, and likes to learn from older people, which is a good sign; but somehow I don't like madam her mother, but still she is her mother, and the girl is her daughter; yet she spoke to her once or twice as I should not ha' liked our little Fanny to have spoken, if it had pleased God for her to ha' lived. No, it's not the right way, and it may be a bit old-fashioned, but I like the right way. And then again she took possession o' me as I may say, and little Molly had to run after us in the garden walks that are too narrow for three, just like a little four-legged doggie; and the other was so full of listening to me, she never turned round for to speak a word to Molly. I don't mean to say they're not fond of each other, and that's in Roger's sweetheart's favour, and it's very ungrateful in me to go and find fault with a lass who was so civil to me, and had such a pretty way with her of hanging on every word that fell from my lips. Well! a deal may come and go in two years! and the lad says nothing to me about it. I'll be as deep as him, and take no more notice of the affair till he comes home and tells me himself.'

So although the squire was always delighted to receive the little notes which Cynthia sent to him every time she heard from Roger, and although this attention on her part was melting the heart he tried to harden, he controlled himself into writing her the briefest acknowledgements. His words were strong in meaning, but formal in expression; she herself did not think much about them, being satisfied to do the kind actions that called them forth. But her mother criticized them and pondered them. She thought she had hit on the truth when she had decided in her own mind that it was a very old-fashioned style, and that he and his house and his furniture all wanted some of the brightening up and polishing which they were sure to receive, when—she never quite liked to finish the sentence definitely, although she kept repeating to herself that 'there was no harm in it.'

To return to the squire. Occupied as he now was, he recovered his former health, and something of his former cheerfulness. If Osborne had met him half-way, it is probable that the old bond between father and son might have been renewed; but Osborne either was really an invalid, or had sunk into invalid habits, and made no effort to rally. If his father urged him to go out—nay, once or twice he gulped down his pride, and asked Osborne to accompany him—Osborne would go to the window and find out some flaw or speck in the wind or weather, and make that an excuse for stopping in the house over his books. He would saunter out on the sunny side of the house in a manner that the squire considered as both indolent and unmanly. Yet if there was a prospect of his leaving home, which he did pretty often about this time, he was seized with a hectic energy: the clouds in the sky, the easterly wind, the dampness of the air, were nothing to him then; and as the squire did not know the real secret cause of this anxiety to be gone, he took it into his head that it arose from Osborne's dislike to Hamley and to the monotony of his father's society.

'It was a mistake,' thought the squire. 'I see it now. I was never great at making friends myself. I always thought those Oxford and Cambridge men turned up their noses at me for a country booby, and I'd get the start and have none o' them. But when the boys went to Rugby and Cambridge, I should ha' let them have had their own friends about 'em, even though they might ha' looked down on me; it was the worst they could ha' done to me, and now what few friends I had have fallen off from me, by death or somehow, and it is but dreary work for a young man, I grant it. But he might try not to show it so plain to me as he does. I'm getting case-hardened, but it does cut me to the quick sometimes—it does. And he so fond of his dad as he was once! If I can but get the land drained I'll make him an allowance, and let him go to London, or where he likes. Maybe he'll do better this time, or maybe he'll go to the dogs altogether; but perhaps it will make him think a bit kindly of the old father at home—I should like him to do that, I should!'

It is possible that Osborne might have been induced to tell his father of his marriage during their long tete-a-tete intercourse, if the squire, in an unlucky moment, had not given him his confidence about Roger's engagement with Cynthia. It was on one wet Sunday afternoon, when the father and son were sitting together in the large empty drawing-room. Osborne had not been to church in the morning; the squire had, and he was now trying hard to read one of Blair's sermons. They had dined early; they always did on Sundays; and either that, or the sermon, or the hopeless wetness of the day, made the afternoon seem interminably long to the squire. He had certain unwritten rules for the regulation of his conduct on Sundays. Cold meat, sermon-reading, no smoking till after evening prayers, as little thought as possible as to the state of the land and the condition of the crops, and as much respectable sitting-indoors in his best clothes as was consistent with going to church twice a day, and saying the responses louder than the clerk. To-day it had rained so unceasingly that he had remitted the afternoon church; but oh, even with the luxury of a nap, how long it seemed before he saw the Hall servants trudging homewards, along the field-path, a covey of umbrellas! He had been standing at the window for the last half-hour, his hands in his pockets, and his mouth often contracting itself into the traditional sin of a whistle, but as often checked into sudden gravity—ending, nine times out of ten, in a yawn. He looked askance at Osborne, who was sitting near the fire absorbed in a book. The poor squire was something like the little boy in the child's story, who asks all sorts of birds and beasts to come and play with him; and, in every case, receives the sober answer, that they are too busy to have leisure for trivial amusements. The father wanted the son to put down his book, and talk to him: it was so wet, so dull, and a little conversation would so wile away the time! But Osborne, with his back to the window where his father was standing, saw nothing of all this, and went on reading. He had assented to his father's remark that it was a very wet afternoon, but had not carried on the subject into all the varieties of truisms of which it was susceptible. Something more rousing must be started, and this the squire felt. The recollection of the affair between Roger and Cynthia came into his head, and, without giving it a moment's consideration, he began,—

'Osborne! Do you know anything about this—this attachment of Roger's?'

Quite successful. Osborne laid down his book in a moment, and turned round to his father.

'Roger! an attachment! No! I never heard of it—I can hardly believe it—that is to say, I suppose it is to—-'

And then he stopped; for he thought he had no right to betray his own conjecture that the object was Cynthia Kirkpatrick.

'Yes. He is though. Can you guess who to? Nobody that I particularly like—not a connection to my mind—yet she's a very pretty girl; and I suppose I was to blame in the first instance.'

'Is it—'

'It's no use beating about the bush. I've gone so far, I may as well tell you all. It's Miss Kirkpatrick, Gibson's stepdaughter. But it's not an engagement, mind you—'

'I'm very glad—I hope she likes Roger back again—'

'Like—it's only too good a connection for her not to like it: if Roger is of the same mind when he comes home, I'll be bound she'll be only too happy!'

'I wonder Roger never told me,' said Osborne, a little hurt, now he began to consider himself.

'He never told me either,' said the squire. 'It was Gibson, who came here, and made a clean breast of it like a man of honour. I'd been saying to him, I could not have either of you two lads taking up with his lasses. I'll own it was you I was afraid of—it's bad enough with Roger, and maybe will come to nothing after all; but if it had been you, I'd ha' broken with Gibson and every mother's son of 'em, sooner than have let it go on; and so I told Gibson.'

'I beg your pardon for interrupting you, but, once for all, I claim the right of choosing my wife for myself, subject to no man's interference,' said Osborne, hotly.

'Then you'll keep your wife with no man's interference, that's all; for ne'er a penny will you get from me, my lad, unless you marry to please me a little, as well as yourself a great deal. That's all I ask of you. I'm not particular as to beauty, or as to cleverness, and piano- playing, and that sort of thing; if Roger marries this girl, we shall have enough of that in the family. I should not much mind her being a bit older than you, but she must be well-born, and the more money she brings the better for the old place.'

'I say again, father, I choose my wife for myself, and I don't admit any man's right of dictation.'

'Well, well!' said the squire, getting a little angry in his turn. 'If I'm not to be father in this matter, thou shan't be son. Go against me in what I've set my heart on, and you'll find there's the devil to pay, that's all. But don't let us get angry, it's Sunday afternoon for one thing, and it's a sin; and besides that, I've not finished my story.'

For Osborne had taken up his book again, and under pretence of reading, was fuming to himself, He hardly put it away even at his father's request.

'As I was saying, Gibson said, when first we spoke about it, that there was nothing on foot between any of you four, and that if there was, he would let me know; so by-and-by he comes and tells me of this.'

'Of what—I don't understand how far it has gone?'

There was a tone in Osborne's voice the squire did not quite like; and he began answering rather angrily.

'Of this to be sure—of what I'm telling you—of Roger going and making love to this girl, that day he left, after he had gone away from here, and was waiting for the "Umpire" in Hollingford. One would think you quite stupid at times, Osborne.'

'I can only say that these details are quite new to me; you never mentioned them before, I assure you.'

'Well; never mind whether I did or not. I'm sure I said Roger was attached to Miss Kirkpatrick, and be hanged to her; and you might have understood all the rest, as a matter of course.'

'Possibly,' said Osborne, politely. 'May I ask if Miss Kirkpatrick, who appeared to me to be a very nice girl, responds to Roger's affection?'

'Fast enough, I'll be bound,' said the squire, sulkily. 'A Hamley of Hamley is not to be had every day. Now, I'll tell you what, Osborne, you're the only marriageable one left in the market, and I want to hoist the old family up again. Don't go against me in this; it really will break my heart if you do.'

'Father, don't talk so,' said Osborne. 'I will do anything I can to oblige you, except—'

'Except the only thing I've set my heart on your doing.'

'Well, well, let it alone for the present. There's no question of my marrying just at this moment. I'm out of health, and I'm not up to going into society, and meeting young ladies and all that sort of thing, even if I had an opening into fitting society.'

'You should have an opening fast enough. There'll be more money coming in, in a year or two, please God. And as for your health, why, what's to make you well, if you cower over the fire all day, and shudder away from a good honest tankard as if it were poison?'

'So it is to me,' said Osborne, languidly, playing with his book as if he wanted to end the conversation and take it up again. The squire saw the movements, and understood them.

'Well,' said he, 'I'll go and have a talk with Will about poor old Black Bess. It's Sunday work enough, asking after a dumb animal's aches and pains.'

But after his father had left the room Osborne did not take up his book again. He laid it down on the table by him, leant back in his chair, and covered his eyes with his hand. He was in a state of health which made him despondent about many things, though, least of all, about what was most in danger. The long concealment of his marriage from his father made the disclosure of it far far more difficult than it would have been at first. Unsupported by Roger, how could he explain it all to one so passionate as the squire? how tell of the temptation, the stolen marriage, the consequent happiness, and alas! the consequent suffering?—for Osborne had suffered, and did suffer, greatly in the untoward circumstances in which he had placed himself. He saw no way out of it all, excepting by the one strong stroke of which he felt himself incapable. So with a heavy heart he addressed himself to his book again. Everything seemed to come in his way, and he was not strong enough in character to overcome obstacles. The only overt step he took in consequence of what he had heard from his father, was to ride over to Hollingford the first fine day after he had received the news, and go to see Cynthia and the Gibsons. He had not been there for a long time; bad weather and languor combined had prevented him. He found them full of preparations and discussions about Cynthia's visit to London; and she herself not at all in the sentimental mood proper to respond to his delicate intimations of how glad he was in his brother's joy. Indeed, it was so long after the time, that Cynthia scarcely perceived that to him the intelligence was recent, and that the first bloom of his emotions had not yet passed away. With her head a little on one side, she was contemplating the effect of a knot of ribbons, when he began, in a low whisper, and leaning forward towards her as he spoke,— 'Cynthia—I may call you Cynthia now, mayn't I?—I am so glad of this news; I've only just heard of it, but I'm so glad!'

'What news do you mean?' She had her suspicions; but she was annoyed to think that from one person her secret was passing to another, and another, till, in fact, it was becoming no secret at all. Still, Cynthia could always conceal her annoyance when she chose. 'Why are you to begin calling me Cynthia now?' she went on, smiling. 'The terrible word has slipped out from between your lips before, do you know?'

This light way of taking his tender congratulations did not quite please Osborne, who was in a sentimental mood, and for a minute or so he remained silent. Then, having finished making her bow of ribbon, she turned to him, and continued, in a quick low voice, anxious to take advantage of a tete-a-tete between her mother and Molly,—

'I think I can guess why you made me that pretty little speech just now. But do you know you ought not to have been told? And, moreover, things are not quite arrived at the solemnity of—of—well—an engagement. He would not have it so. Now, I shan't say any more; and you must not. Pray remember you ought not to have known; it is my own secret, and I particularly wished it not to be spoken about; and I don't like it's being so talked about. Oh, the leaking of water through one small hole!'

And then she plunged into the tete-a-tete of the other two, making the conversation general. Osborne was rather discomfited at the non- success of his congratulations; he had pictured to himself the unbosoming of a love-sick girl, full of rapture, and glad of a sympathizing confidant. He little knew Cynthia's nature. The more she suspected that she was called upon for a display of emotion, the less would she show; and her emotions were generally under the control of her will. He had made an effort to come and see her; and now he leant back in his chair, weary and a little dispirited.

'You poor dear young man,' said Mrs. Gibson, coming up to him with her soft, soothing manner; 'how tired you look! Do take some of that eau- de-Cologne and bathe your forehead. This spring weather overcomes me too. 'Primavera' I think the Italians call it. But it is very trying for delicate constitutions, as much from its associations as from its variableness of temperature. It makes me sigh perpetually; but then I am so sensitive. Dear Lady Cumnor always used to say I was like a thermometer. You've heard how ill she has been?'

'No,' said Osborne, not very much caring either.

'Oh, yes, she is better now; but the anxiety about her has tried me so: detained here by what are, of course, my duties, but far away from all intelligence, and not knowing what the next post might bring.'

'Where was she then?' asked Osborne, becoming a little more sympathetic.

'At Spa. Such a distance off! Three days' post! Can't you conceive the trial? Living with her as I did for years; bound up in the family as I was.'

'But Lady Harriet said, in her last letter, that they hoped that she would be stronger than she had been for years,' said Molly, innocently.

'Yes—Lady Harriet—of course—every one who knows Lady Harriet knows that she is of too sanguine a temperament for her statements to be perfectly relied on. Altogether—strangers are often deluded by Lady Harriet—she has an off—hand manner which takes them in; but she does not mean half she says.'

'We will hope she does in this instance,' said Cynthia, shortly. 'They are in London now, and Lady Cumnor has not suffered from the journey.'

'They say so,' said Mrs. Gibson, shaking her head, and laying an emphasis on the word 'say.' 'I am perhaps over-anxious, but I wish—I wish I could see and judge for myself. It would be the only way of calming my anxiety. I almost think I shall go up with you, Cynthia, for a day or two, just to see her with my own eyes. I don't quite like your travelling alone either. We will think about it, and you shall write to Mr. Kirkpatrick, and propose it, if we determine upon it. You can tell him of my anxiety; and it will be only sharing your bed for a couple of nights.'



CHAPTER XL

MOLLY GIBSON BREATHES FREELY

That was the way in which Mrs. Gibson first broached her intention of accompanying Cynthia up to London for a few days' visit. She had a trick of producing the first sketch of any new plan before an outsider to the family circle; so that the first emotions of others, if they disapproved of her projects, had to be repressed, until the idea had become familiar to them. To Molly it seemed too charming a proposal ever to come to pass. She had never allowed herself to recognize the restraint she was under in her stepmother's presence; but all at once she found it out when her heart danced at the idea of three whole days —for that it would be at the least—of perfect freedom of intercourse with her father; of old times come back again; of meals without perpetual fidgetiness after details of ceremony and correctness of attendance.

'We'll have bread and cheese for dinner, and eat it on our knees; we'll make up for having had to eat sloppy puddings with a fork instead of a spoon all this time, by putting our knives in our mouths till we cut ourselves. Papa shall pour his tea into his saucer if he is in a hurry; and if I'm thirsty, I'll take the slop-basin. And oh, if I could but get, buy, borrow, or steal any kind of an old horse; my grey skirt is not new, but it will do;—that would be too delightful. After all, I think I can be happy again; for months and months it has seemed as if I had got too old ever to feel pleasure, much less happiness again.'

So thought Molly. Yet she blushed, as if with guilt, when Cynthia, reading her thought, said to her one day,—

'Molly, you are very glad to get rid of us, are not you?'

'Not of you, Cynthia; at least, I don't think I am. Only, if you only knew how I love papa, and how I used to see a great deal more of him than I ever do now—-'

'Ah! I often think what interlopers we must seem, and are in fact—'

'I don't feel you as such. You, at any rate, have been a new delight to me, a sister; and I never knew how charming such a relationship could be.'

'But mamma?' said Cynthia, half-suspiciously, half-sorrowfully.

'She is papa's wife,' said Molly, quietly. 'I don't mean to say I am not often very sorry to feel I am no longer first with him; but it was'—the violent colour flushed into her face till even her eyes burnt, and she suddenly found herself on the point of crying; the weeping ash-tree, the misery, the slow dropping comfort;' and the comforters came all so vividly before her;—'it was Roger!'—she went on looking up at Cynthia, as she overcame her slight hesitation at mentioning his name—'Roger, who told me how I ought to take papa's marriage, when I was first startled and grieved at the news. Oh, Cynthia, what a great thing it is to be loved by him!'

Cynthia blushed, and looked fluttered and pleased.

'Yes, I suppose it is. At the same time, Molly, I'm afraid he'll expect me to be always as good as he fancies me now, and I shall have to walk on tip-toe all the rest of my life.'

'But you are good, Cynthia,' put in Molly.

'No, I'm not. You're just as much mistaken as he is; and some day I shall go down in your opinions with a run, just like the hall clock the other day when the spring broke.'

'I think he'll love you just as much,' said Molly.

'Could you? Would you be my friend if—if it turned out ever that I had done very wrong things? Would you remember how very difficult it has sometimes been to me to act rightly' (she took hold of Molly's hand as she spoke). 'We won't speak of mamma, for your sake as much as mine or hers; but you must see she is not one to help a girl with much good advice, or good—-Oh, Molly, you don't know how I was neglected just at a time when I wanted friends most. Mamma does not know it; it is not in her to know what I might have been if I had only fallen into wise, good hands. But I know it; and what's more,' continued she, suddenly ashamed of her unusual exhibition of feeling, 'I try not to care, which I daresay is really the worst of all; but I could worry myself to death if I once took to serious thinking.'

'I wish I could help you, or even understand you,' said Molly, after a moment or two of sad perplexity.

'You can help me,' said Cynthia, changing her manner abruptly. 'I can trim bonnets, and make head-dresses; but somehow my hands can't fold up gowns and collars, like your deft little fingers. Please will you help me to pack? That's a real, tangible piece of kindness, and not sentimental consolation for sentimental distresses, which are, perhaps, imaginary after all.'

In general, it is the people who are left behind stationary, who give way to low spirits at any parting; the travellers, however bitterly they may feel the separation, find something in the change of scene to soften regret in the very first hour of separation. But as Molly walked home with her father from seeing Mrs. Gibson and Cynthia off to London by the 'Umpire' coach, she almost danced along the street.

'Now, papa!' said she, 'I'm going to have you all to myself for a whole week. You must be very obedient.'

'Don't be tyrannical, then. You are walking me out of breath, and we are cutting Mrs. Goodenough, in our hurry.'

So they crossed over the street to speak to Mrs. Goodenough.

'We've just been seeing my wife and her daughter off to London. Mrs Gibson has gone up for a week!'

'Deary, deary, to London, and only for a week! Why, I can remember its being a three days' journey! It will be very lonesome for you, Miss Molly, without your young companion!'

'Yes!' said Molly, suddenly feeling as if she ought to have taken this view of the case. 'I shall miss Cynthia very much.'

'And you, Mr. Gibson; why, it will be like being a widower over again! You must come and drink tea with me some evening. We must try and cheer you up a bit amongst us. Shall it be Tuesday?'

In spite of the sharp pinch which Molly gave to his arm, Mr. Gibson accepted the invitation, much to the gratification of the old lady.

'Papa, how could you go and waste one of our evenings. We have but six in all, and now but five; and I had so reckoned on our doing all sorts of things together.'

'What sort of things?'

'Oh, I don't know: everything that is unrefined and ungenteel,' added she, slyly looking up into her father's face.

His eyes twinkled, but the rest of his face was perfectly grave. 'I'm not going to be corrupted. With toil and labour I have reached a very fair height of refinement. I won't be pulled down again.'

'Yes, you will, papa. We'll have bread and cheese for lunch this very day. And you shall wear your slippers in the drawing-room every evening you'll stay quietly at home; and oh, papa, don't you think I could ride Nora Creina. I've been looking out the old grey skirt, and I think I could make myself tidy.'

'Where is the side-saddle to come from?'

'To be sure the old one won't fit that great Irish mare. But I'm not particular, papa. I think I could manage somehow.'

'Thank you. But I'm not quite going to return into barbarism. It may he a depraved taste, but I should like to see my daughter properly mounted.'

'Think of riding together down the lanes—why, the dog-roses must be all out in flower, and the honeysuckles, and the hay—how I should like to see Merriman's farm again! Papa, do let me have one ride with you! Please do. I am sure we can manage it somehow.'

And 'somehow' it was managed. 'Somehow' all Molly's wishes came to pass; there was only one little drawback to this week of holiday and happy intercourse with her father. Everybody would ask them out to tea. They were quite like bride and bridegroom; for the fact was, that the late dinners which Mrs. Gibson had introduced into her own house, were a great inconvenience in the calculations of the small tea-drinkings at Hollingford. How ask people to tea at six, who dined at that hour? How, when they refused cake and sandwiches at half-past eight, how induce other people who were really hungry to commit a vulgarity before those calm and scornful eyes? So there had been a great lull of invitations for the Gibsons to Hollingford tea-parties. Mrs. Gibson, whose object was to squeeze herself into 'county society,' had taken this being left out of the smaller festivities with great equanimity; but Molly missed the kind homeliness of the parties to which she had gone from time to time as long as she could remember; and though, as each three-cornered note was brought in, she grumbled a little over the loss of another charming tete-a-tete with her father, she really was glad to go again in the old way among old friends. Miss Browning and Miss Phoebe were especially compassionate towards her in her loneliness. If they had had their will she would have dined there every day; and she had to call upon them very frequently in order to prevent their being hurt at her declining the dinners. Mrs. Gibson wrote twice during her week's absence to her husband. That piece of news was quite satisfactory to the Miss Brownings, who had of late months held themselves a great deal aloof from a house where they chose to suppose that their presence was not wanted. In their winter evenings they had often talked over Mr. Gibson's household, and having little besides conjectures to go upon, they found the subject interminable, as they could vary the possibilities every day. One of their wonders was how Mr. and Mrs. Gibson really got on together; another was whether Mrs. Gibson was extravagant or not. Now two letters during the week of her absence showed what was in those days considered a very proper amount of conjugal affection. Yet not too much—at elevenpence halfpenny postage. A third letter would have been extravagant. Sister looked to sister with an approving nod as Molly named the second letter, which arrived in Hollingford the very day before Mrs. Gibson was to return. They had settled between themselves that two letters would show the right amount of good feeling and proper understanding in the Gibson family: more would have been extravagant; only one would have been a mere matter of duty. There had been rather a question between Miss Browning and Miss Phoebe as to which person the second letter (supposing it came) was to be addressed. It would be very conjugal to write twice to Mr Gibson; and yet it would be very pretty if Molly came in for her share.

'You've had another letter, you say, my dear,' asked Miss Browning, 'I daresay Mrs. Gibson has written to you this time?'

'It is a large sheet, and Cynthia has written on one half to me, and all the rest is to papa.'

'A very nice arrangement, I'm sure. And what does Cynthia say? Is she enjoying herself?'

'Oh, yes, I think so. They have had a dinner-party, and one night when mamma was at Lady Cumnor's, Cynthia went to the play with her cousins.'

'Upon my word! and all in one week? I do call that dissipation. Why, Thursday would be taken up with the journey, and Friday with resting, and Sunday is Sunday all the world over; and they must have written on Tuesday. Well! I hope Cynthia won't find Hollingford dull, that's all, when she comes back.'

'I don't think it's likely,' said Miss Phoebe, with a little simper and a knowing look, which sate oddly on her kindly innocent face. 'You see a great deal of Mr. Preston, don't you, Molly!'

'Mr. Preston!' said Molly, flushing up with surprise. 'No! not much. He's been at Ashcombe all winter, you know! He has but just come back to settle here, What should make you think so!'

'Oh! a little bird told us,' said Miss Browning. Molly knew that little bird from her childhood, and had always hated it, and longed to wring its neck. Why could not people speak out and say that they did not mean to give up the name of their informant? But it was a very favourite form of fiction with the Miss Brownings, and to Miss Phoebe it was the very acme of wit.

'The little bird was flying about one day in Heath Lane, and it saw Mr. Preston and a young lady—we won't say who—walking together in a very friendly manner, that is to say, he was on horseback; but the path is raised above the road, just where there is the little wooden bridge over the brook—'

'Perhaps Molly is in the secret, and we ought not to ask her about it,' said Miss Phoebe, seeing Molly's extreme discomfiture and annoyance.

'It can be no great secret,' said Miss Browning, dropping the little- bird formula, and assuming an air of dignified reproval at Miss Phoebe's interruption, 'for Miss Hornblower says Mr. Preston owns to being engaged—'

'At any rate it is not to Cynthia, that I know positively,' said Molly with some vehemence. 'And pray put a stop to any such reports; you don't know what mischief they may do. I do so hate that kind of chatter!' It was not very respectful of Molly to speak in this way to be sure, but she thought only of Roger; and the distress any such reports might cause, should he ever hear of them (in the centre of Africa!) made her colour up scarlet with vexation.

'Heighty-teighty! Miss Molly! don't you remember that I am old enough to be your mother, and that it is not pretty behaviour to speak so to us—to me! "Chatter" to be sure. Really, Molly—'

'I beg your pardon,' said Molly, only half-penitent.

'I daresay you did not mean to speak so to sister,' said Miss Phoebe, trying to make peace.

Molly did not answer all at once. She wanted to explain how much mischief might be done by such reports.

'But don't you see,' she went on, still flushed by vexation, 'how bad it is to talk of such things in such a way? Supposing one of them cared for some one else, and that might happen, you know; Mr Preston, for instance, may be engaged to some one else?'

'Molly! I pity the woman! Indeed I do. I have a very poor opinion of Mr. Preston,' said Miss Browning, in a warning tone of voice; for a new idea had come into her head.

'Well, but the woman, or young lady, would not like to hear such reports about Mr. Preston.'

'Perhaps not. But for all that, take my word for it, he's a great flirt, and young ladies had better not have much to do with him.'

'I daresay it was all accident their meeting in Heath Lane.' said Miss Phoebe.

'I know nothing about it,' said Molly, 'and I daresay I have been impertinent, only please don't talk about it any more. I have my reasons for asking you.' She got up, for by the striking of the church clock she had just found out that it was later than she had thought, and she knew that her father would be at home by this time. She bent down and kissed Miss Browning's grave and passive face.

'How you are growing, Molly!' said Miss Phoebe, anxious to cover over her sister's displeasure. '"As tall and as straight as a poplar-tree!" as the old song says.'

'Grow in grace, Molly, as well as in good looks!' said Miss Browning, watching her out of the room. As soon as she was fairly gone, Miss Browning got up and shut the door quite securely, and then sitting down near her sister, she said, in a low voice, 'Phoebe, it was Molly herself that was with Mr. Preston in Heath Lane that day when Mrs. Goodenough saw them together!'

'Gracious goodness me!' exclaimed Miss Phoebe, receiving it at once as gospel. 'How do you know?'

'By putting two and two together. Did not you notice how red Molly went, and then pale, and how she said she knew for a fact that Mr Preston and Cynthia Kirkpatrick were not engaged?'

'Perhaps not engaged; but Mrs. Goodenough saw them loitering together, all by their own two selves—'

'Mrs. Goodenough only crossed Heath Lane at the Shire Oak, as she was riding in her phaeton,' said Miss Browning, sententiously. 'We all know what a coward she is in a carriage, so that most likely she had only half her wits about her, and her eyes are none of the best when she is standing steady on the ground. Molly and Cynthia have got those new plaid shawls just alike, and they trim their bonnets alike, and Molly is grown as tall as Cynthia since Christmas. I was always afraid she'd be short and stumpy, but she's now as tall and slender as any one need be. I'll answer for it, Mrs. Goodenough saw Molly, and took her for Cynthia.'

When Miss Browning 'answered for it' Miss Phoebe gave up doubting. She sate some time in silence revolving her thoughts. Then she said,—

'It would not be such a very bad match after all, sister.' She spoke very meekly, awaiting her sister's sanction to her opinion.

'Phoebe, it would be a bad match for Mary Preston's daughter. If I had known what I know now we'd never have had him to tea last September.'

'Why, what do you know?' asked Miss Phoebe.

'Miss Hornblower told me many things; some that I don't think you ought to hear, Phoebe. He was engaged to a very pretty Miss Gregson, at Henwick, where he comes from; and her father made inquiries, and heard so much that was bad about him, that he made his daughter break off the match, and she's dead since!'

'How shocking!' said Miss Phoebe, duly impressed.

'Besides, he plays at billiards and he bets at races, and some people do say he keeps race-horses.'

'But is not it strange that the earl keeps him on as his agent?'

'No! perhaps not. He's very clever about land, and very sharp in all law affairs; and my lord is not bound to take notice—if indeed he knows—of the manner in which Mr. Preston talks when he has taken too much wine.'

'Taken too much wine. Oh, sister, is he a drunkard? and we have had him to tea!'

'I did not say he was a drunkard, Phoebe,' said Miss Browning, pettishly. 'A man may take too much wine occasionally, without being a drunkard. Don't let me hear you using such coarse words, Phoebe!'

Miss Phoebe was silent for a time after this rebuke.

'Presently she said, 'I do hope it was not Molly Gibson.'

'You may hope as much as you like, but I'm pretty sure it was. However, we'd better say nothing about it to Mrs. Goodenough; she has got Cynthia into her head, and there let her rest. Time enough to set reports afloat about Molly when we know there's some truth in them. Mr. Preston might do for Cynthia, who's been brought up France, though she has such pretty manners; but it may have made her not particular. He must not, and he shall not, have Molly, if I go into church and forbid the banns myself; but I'm afraid—I'm afraid there's something between her and him. We must keep on the lookout, Phoebe. I'll be her guardian angel, in spite of herself.'



CHAPTER XLI

GATHERING CLOUDS

Mrs. Gibson came back full of rose-coloured accounts of London. Lady Cumnor had been gracious and affectionate, 'so touched by my going up to see her, so soon after her return to England;' Lady Harriet charming and devoted to her old governess; Lord Cumnor 'just like his dear usual hearty self;' and as for the Kirkpatricks, no Lord Chancellor's house was ever grander than theirs, and the silk gown of the Q.C. had floated over housemaids and footmen. Cynthia, too, was so much admired; and as for her dress, Mrs. Kirkpatrick had showered down ball-dresses and wreaths, and pretty bonnets and mantles, like a fairy godmother. Mr. Gibson's poor present of ten pounds shrank into very small dimensions compared with all this munificence.

'And they're so fond of her, I don't know when we shall have her back,' was Mrs. Gibson's winding-up sentence. 'And now, Molly, what have you and papa been doing? Very gay, you sounded in your letter. I had not time to read it in London; so I put it in my pocket, and read it in the coach coming home. But, my dear child, you do look so old-fashioned with your gown made all tight, and your hair all tumbling about in curls. Curls are quite gone out.' We must do your hair differently,' she continued, trying to smooth Molly's black waves into straightness.

'I sent Cynthia an African letter,' said Molly, timidly. 'Did you hear anything of what was in it?'

'Oh, yes, poor child! It made her very uneasy, I think; she said she did not feel inclined to go to Mr. Rawson's ball, which was on that night, and for which Mrs. Kirkpatrick had given her the ball-dress. But there really was nothing for her to fidget herself about. Roger only said he had had another touch of fever, but was better when he wrote. He says every European has to be acclimatized by fever in that part of Abyssinia where he is.'

'And did she go?' asked Molly.

'Yes, to be sure. It is not an engagement; and if it were, it is not acknowledged. Fancy her going and saying, "A young man that I know has been ill for a few days in Africa, two months ago, therefore I don't want to go to the ball to-night." It would have seemed like affectation of sentiment; and if there's one thing I hate it is that.'

'She would hardly enjoy herself,' said Molly.

'Oh, yes, but she did. Her dress was white gauze, trimmed with lilacs, and she really did look—a mother may be allowed a little natural partiality—most lovely. And she danced every dance, although she was quite a stranger. I am sure she enjoyed herself, from her manner of talking about it next morning.'

'I wonder if the squire knows.'

'Knows what? Oh, yes, to be sure! You mean about Roger. I dare say he doesn't, and there's no need to tell him, for I've no doubt it is all right now.' And she went out of the room to Finish her unpacking.

Molly let her work fall, and sighed. 'It will be a year the day after to-morrow since he came here to propose our going to Hurst Wood, and mamma was so vexed at his calling before lunch. I wonder if Cynthia remembers it as well as I do. And now, perhaps—Oh! Roger, Roger! I wish—I pray that you were safe home again! How could we all bear it, if—'

She covered her face with her hands, and tried to stop thinking. Suddenly she got up, as if stung by a venomous fancy,

'I don't believe she loves him as she ought, or she could not—could not have gone and danced. What shall I do if she does not? What shall I do? I can bear anything but that.'

But she found the long suspense as to his health hard enough to endure. They were not likely to hear from him for a month at least, and before that time had elapsed Cynthia would be at home again. Molly learnt to long for her return before a fortnight of her absence was over. She had had no idea that perpetual tete-a-tetes with Mrs. Gibson could, by any possibility, be so tiresome as she found them. Perhaps Molly's state of delicate health, consequent upon her rapid growth during the last few months, made her irritable; but really often she had to get up and leave the room to calm herself down after listening to a long series of words, more frequently plaintive or discontented in tone than cheerful, and which at the end conveyed no distinct impression of either the speaker's thought or feeling. Whenever anything had gone wrong, whenever Mr. Gibson had coolly persevered in anything to which she had objected; whenever the cook had made a mistake about the dinner, or the housemaid broken any little frangible article; whenever Molly's hair was not done to her liking, or her dress did not become her, or the smell of dinner pervaded the house, or the wrong callers came, or the right callers did not come—in fact, whenever anything went wrong, poor Mr. Kirkpatrick was regretted and mourned over, nay, almost blamed, as if, had he only given himself the trouble of living, he could have helped it.

'When I look back to those happy days, it seems to me as if I had never valued them as I ought. To be sure—youth, love,—what did we care for poverty! I remember dear Mr. Kirkpatrick walking five miles into Stratford to buy me a muffin because I had such a fancy for one after Cynthia was born. I don't mean to complain of dear papa—but I don't think—but, perhaps I ought not to say it to you. If Mr Kirkpatrick had but taken care of that cough of his; but he was so obstinate! Men always are, I think. And it really was selfish of him. Only I dare say he did not consider the forlorn state in which I should be left. It came harder upon me than upon most people, because I always was of such an affectionate sensitive nature. I remember a little poem of Mr. Kirkpatrick's in which he compared my heart to a harp-string, vibrating to the slightest breeze.'

'I thought harp-strings required a pretty strong finger to make them sound,' said Molly.

'My dear child, you've no more poetry in you than your father. And as for your hair! it's worse than ever. Can't you drench it in water to take those untidy twists and twirls out of it?'

'It only makes it curl more and more when it gets dry,' said Molly, sudden tears coming into her eyes as a recollection came before her like a picture seen long ago and forgotten for years—a young mother washing and dressing her little girl; placing the half-naked darling on her knee, and twining the wet rings of dark hair fondly round her fingers, and then, in an ecstasy of fondness, kissing the little curly head.

The receipt of Cynthia's letters made very agreeable events. She did not write often, but her letters were tolerably long when they did come, and very sprightly in tone. There was constant mention made of many new names, which conveyed no idea to Molly, though Mrs. Gibson would try and enlighten her by running commentaries like the following,—

'Mrs. Green! ah, that's Mr. Jones's pretty cousin, who lives in Russell Square with the fat husband. They keep their carriage; but I'm not sure if it is not Mr. Green who is Mrs. Jones's cousin. We can ask Cynthia when she comes home. Mr. Henderson! to be sure—a young man with black whiskers, a pupil of Mr. Kirkpatrick's formerly,—or was he a pupil of Mr. Murray's? I know they said he had read law with somebody. Ah, yes! they are the people who called the day after Mr Rawson's ball, and who admired Cynthia so much, without knowing I was her mother. She was very handsomely dressed indeed, in black satin; and the son had a glass eye, but he was a young man of good property. Coleman! yes, that was the name.'

No more news of Roger until some time after Cynthia had returned from her London visit. She came back looking fresher and prettier than ever, beautifully dressed, thanks to her own good taste, and her cousins' generosity, full of amusing details of the gay life she had been enjoying, yet not at all out of spirits at having left it behind her. She brought home all sorts of pretty and dainty devices for Molly; a neck ribbon made up in the newest fashion, a pattern for a tippet, a delicate pair of light gloves embroidered as Molly had never seen gloves embroidered before, and many another little sign of remembrance during her absence. Yet somehow or other, Molly felt that Cynthia was changed in her relation to her. Molly was aware that she had never had Cynthia's full confidence, for with all her apparent frankness and naivete of manner, Cynthia was extremely reserved and reticent. She knew this much of herself, and had often laughed about it to Molly, and the latter had found out the truth of her friend's assertion for herself. But Molly did not trouble herself much about this, She too knew that there were many thoughts and feelings that flitted through her mind that she should never think of telling to any one, except perhaps—if they were ever very much thrown together—to her father. She knew that Cynthia withheld from her more than thoughts and feelings—that she withheld facts. But then, as Molly reflected, these facts might involve details of struggle and suffering, might relate to her mother's neglect, and altogether be of so painful a character, that it would be well if Cynthia could forget her childhood altogether, instead of fixing it in her mind by the relation of her grievances and troubles. So it was not now by any want of confidence that Molly felt distanced as it were. It was because Cynthia rather avoided than sought her companionship; because her eyes shunned the straight, serious, loving look of Molly's; because there were certain subjects on which she evidently disliked speaking, not particularly interesting things as far as Molly could perceive, but it almost seemed as if they lay on the road to points to be avoided. Molly felt a sort of sighing pleasure in noticing Cynthia's changed manner of talking about Roger. She spoke of him tenderly now; 'poor Roger,' as she called him; and Molly thought that she must be referring to the illness which he had mentioned in his last letter. One morning in the first week after Cynthia's return home, just as he was going out, Mr. Gibson ran up into the drawing-room, hat on, booted and spurred, and hastily laid an open pamphlet down before her; pointing out a particular passage with his finger, but not speaking a word before he rapidly quitted the room. His eyes were sparkling, and had an amused as well as pleased expression. All this Molly noticed, as well as Cynthia's flush of colour as she read what was thus pointed out to her. Then she pushed it a little on one side, not closing the book however, and went on with her work.

'What is it? may I see it?' asked Molly, stretching out her hand for the pamphlet, which lay within her reach. But she did not take it until Cynthia had said,—

'Certainly, I don't suppose there are any great secrets in a scientific journal, full of reports of meetings.' And she gave the book a little push towards Molly. .

'Oh, Cynthia!' said Molly, catching her breath as she read, 'Are you not proud?' For it was an account of an annual gathering of the Geographical Society, and Lord Hollingford had read a letter he had received from Roger Hamley, dated from Arracuoba, a district in Africa, hitherto unvisited by any intelligent European traveller; and about which, Mr. Hamley sent many curious particulars. The reading of this letter had been received with the greatest interest, and several subsequent speakers had paid the writer very high compliments.

But Molly might have known Cynthia better than to expect an answer responsive to the feelings that prompted her question. Let Cynthia be ever so proud, ever so glad, or so grateful, or even indignant, remorseful, grieved or sorry, the very fact that she was expected by another to entertain any of these emotions, would have been enough to prevent her expressing them.

'I'm afraid I'm not as much struck by the wonder of the thing as you are, Molly. Besides, it is not news to me; at least, not entirely. I heard about the meeting before I left London; it was a good deal talked about in my uncle's set; to be sure I did not hear all the fine things they say of him there—but then, you know, that's a mere fashion of speaking, which means nothing; somebody is bound to pay compliments when a lord takes the trouble to read one of his letters aloud.'

'Nonsense,' said Molly. 'You know you don't believe what you are saying, Cynthia.'

Cynthia gave that pretty little jerk of her shoulders, which was her equivalent for a French shrug, but did not lift up her head from her sewing. Molly began to read the report over again.

'Why, Cynthia!' she said, 'you might have been there; ladies were there. It says "many ladies were present." Oh, could not you have managed to go? If your uncle's set cared about these things, would not some of them have taken you?'

'Perhaps, if I had asked them. But I think they would have been rather astonished at my sudden turn for science.'

'You might have told your uncle how matters really stood; he would not have talked about it if you had wished him not, I am sure, and he could have helped you.'

'Once for all, Molly,' said Cynthia, now laying down her work, and speaking with quick authority, 'do learn to understand that it is, and always has been my wish, not to have the relation which Roger and I bear to each other, mentioned or talked about. When the right time comes, I will make it known to my uncle, and to everybody whom it may concern; but I am not going to make mischief, and get myself into trouble—even for the sake of hearing compliments paid to him—by letting it out before the time. If I'm pushed to it, I'd sooner break it off altogether at once, and have done with it. I can't be worse off than I am now.' Her angry tone had changed into a kind of desponding complaint before she had ended her sentence. Molly looked at her with dismay.

'I can't understand you, Cynthia,' she said at length.

'No; I dare say you can't,' said Cynthia, looking at her with tears in her eyes, and very tenderly, as if in atonement for her late vehemence. 'I am afraid—I hope you never will.'

In a moment, Molly's arms were round her. 'Oh, Cynthia,' she murmured, 'have I been plaguing you? Have I vexed you? Don't say you're afraid of my knowing you. Of course you've your faults, everybody has, but I think I love you the better for them.'

'I don't know that I'm so very bad,' said Cynthia, smiling a little through the tears that Molly's words and caresses had forced to overflow from her eyes. 'But I have got into scrapes. I am in a scrape now, I do sometimes believe I shall always be in scrapes, and if they ever come to light, I shall seem to be worse than I really am; and I know your father will throw me off, and I—no, I won't be afraid that you will, Molly.'

'I'm sure I won't. Are they—do you think—how would Roger take it?' asked Molly, very timidly.

'I don't know. I hope he will never hear of it. I don't see why he should, for in a little while I shall be quite clear again. It all came about without my ever thinking I was doing wrong. I've a great mind to tell you all about it, Molly.'

Molly did not like to urge it, though she longed to know, and to see if she could not offer help; but while Cynthia was hesitating, and perhaps, to say the truth, rather regretting that she had even made this slight advance towards bestowing her confidence, Mrs. Gibson came in, full of some manner of altering a gown of hers, so as to make it into the fashion of the day, as she had seen it during her visit to London. Cynthia seemed to forget her tears and her troubles, and to throw her whole soul into millinery.

Cynthia's correspondence went on pretty briskly with her London cousins, according to the usual rate of correspondence in those days. Indeed Mrs. Gibson was occasionally inclined to complain of the frequency of Helen Kirkpatrick's letters; for before the penny post came in, the recipient had to pay the postage of letters; and elevenpence-halfpenny three times a week came, according to Mrs Gibson's mode of reckoning when annoyed, to a sum 'between three and four shillings.' But these complaints were only for the family; they saw the wrong side of the tapestry. Hollingford in general, the Miss Brownings in particular, heard of 'dear Helen's enthusiastic friendship for Cynthia' and of 'the real pleasure it was to receive such constant news—relays of news indeed—from London. It was almost as good as living there!'

'A great deal better I should think,' said Miss Browning with some severity. For she had got many of her notions of the metropolis from the British Essayists, where town is so often represented as the centre of dissipation, corrupting country wives and squires' daughters, and unfitting them for all their duties by the constant whirl of its not always innocent pleasures. London was a sort of moral pitch, which few could touch and not be defiled. Miss Browning had been on the watch for the signs of deterioration in Cynthia's character ever since her return home. But, excepting in a greater number of pretty and becoming articles of dress, there was no great change for the worse to be perceived. Cynthia had been 'in the world,' had 'beheld the glare and glitter and dazzling display of London,' yet had come back to Hollingford as ready as ever to place a chair for Miss Browning, or to gather flowers for a nosegay for Miss Phoebe, or to mend her own clothes. But all this was set down to the merits of Cynthia, not to the credit of London-town.