"I should have hated you if you had," said Cynthia.

"Of course I never thought of doing such a thing," replied Molly. "I didn't like him; and Lady Harriet spoke of him the next day, as if he wasn't a person to be liked."

Cynthia was quite silent. At length she said,--

"I wish I was good!"

"So do I," said Molly, simply. She was thinking again of Mrs.

Hamley,--

Only the actions of the just Smell sweet and blossom in the dust,

and "goodness" just then seemed to her to be the only enduring thing in the world.

"Nonsense, Molly! You are good. At least, if you're not good, what am I? There's a rule-of-three sum for you to do! But it's no use talking; I am not good, and I never shall be now. Perhaps I might be a heroine still, but I shall never be a good woman, I know."

"Do you think it easier to be a heroine?"

"Yes, as far as one knows of heroines from history. I'm capable of a great jerk, an effort, and then a relaxation--but steady, every-day goodness is beyond me. I must be a moral kangaroo!"

Molly could not follow Cynthia's ideas; she could not distract herself from the thoughts of the sorrowing group at the Hall.

"How I should like to see them all! and yet one can do nothing at such a time! Papa says the funeral is to be on Tuesday, and that, after that, Roger Hamley is to go back to Cambridge. It will seem as if nothing had happened! I wonder how the squire and Mr. Osborne Hamley will get on together."

"He's the eldest son, is he not? Why shouldn't he and his father get on well together?"

"Oh! I don't know. That is to say, I do know, but I think I ought not to tell."

"Don't be so pedantically truthful, Molly. Besides, your manner shows when you speak truth and when you speak falsehood, without troubling yourself to use words. I knew exactly what your 'I don't know' meant.

I never consider myself bound to be truthful, so I beg we may be on equal terms."

Cynthia might well say she did not consider herself bound to be truthful; she literally said what came uppermost, without caring very much whether it was accurate or not. But there was no ill-nature, and, in a general way, no attempt at procuring any advantage for herself in all her deviations; and there was often such a latent sense of fun in them that Molly could not help being amused with them in fact, though she condemned them in theory. Cynthia's playfulness of manner glossed such failings over with a kind of charm; and yet, at times, she was so soft and sympathetic that Molly could not resist her, even when she affirmed the most startling things. The little account she made of her own beauty pleased Mr. Gibson extremely; and her pretty deference to him won his heart. She was restless too, till she had attacked Molly's dress, after she had remodelled her mother's.

"Now for you, sweet one," said she as she began upon one of Molly's gowns. "I've been working as connoisseur until now; now I begin as amateur."

She brought down her pretty artificial flowers, plucked out of her own best bonnet to put into Molly's, saying they would suit her complexion, and that a knot of ribbons would do well enough for her.

All the time she worked, she sang; she had a sweet voice in singing, as well as in speaking, and used to run up and down her gay French _chansons_ without any difficulty; so flexible in the art was she.

Yet she did not seem to care for music. She rarely touched the piano, on which Molly practised with daily conscientiousness. Cynthia was always willing to answer questions about her previous life, though, after the first, she rarely alluded to it of herself; but she was a most sympathetic listener to all Molly's innocent confidences of joys and sorrows: sympathizing even to the extent of wondering how she could endure Mr. Gibson's second marriage, and why she did not take some active steps of rebellion.

In spite of all this agreeable and pungent variety of companionship at home, Molly yearned after the Hamleys. If there had been a woman in that family she would probably have received many little notes, and heard numerous details which were now lost to her, or summed up in condensed accounts of her father's visits at the Hall, which, since his dear patient was dead, were only occasional.

"Yes! The Squire is a good deal changed; but he's better than he was.

There's an unspoken estrangement between him and Osborne; one can see it in the silence and constraint of their manners; but outwardly they are friendly--civil at any rate. The squire will always respect Osborne as his heir, and the future representative of the family.

Osborne doesn't look well; he says he wants change. I think he's weary of the domestic dullness, or domestic dissension. But he feels his mother's death acutely. It's a wonder that he and his father are not drawn together by their common loss. Roger's away at Cambridge too--examination for the mathematical tripos. Altogether the aspect of both people and place is changed; it is but natural!"

Such is perhaps the summing-up of the news of the Hamleys, as contained in many bulletins. They always ended in some kind message to Molly.

Mrs. Gibson generally said, as a comment upon her husband's account of Osborne's melancholy,--

"My dear! why don't you ask him to dinner here? A little quiet dinner, you know. Cook is quite up to it; and we would all of us wear blacks and lilacs; he couldn't consider that as gaiety."

Mr. Gibson took no more notice of these suggestions than by shaking his head. He had grown accustomed to his wife by this time, and regarded silence on his own part as a great preservative against long inconsequential arguments. But every time that Mrs. Gibson was struck by Cynthia's beauty, she thought it more and more advisable that Mr.

Osborne Hamley should be cheered up by a quiet little dinner-party.

As yet no one but the ladies of Hollingford and Mr. Ashton, the vicar--that hopeless and impracticable old bachelor--had seen Cynthia; and what was the good of having a lovely daughter, if there were none but old women to admire her?

Cynthia herself appeared extremely indifferent upon the subject, and took very little notice of her mother's constant talk about the gaieties that were possible, and the gaieties that were impossible, in Hollingford. She exerted herself just as much to charm the two Miss Brownings as she would have done to delight Osborne Hamley, or any other young heir. That is to say, she used no exertion, but simply followed her own nature, which was to attract every one of those she was thrown amongst. The exertion seemed rather to be to refrain from doing so, and to protest, as she often did, by slight words and expressive looks against her mother's words and humours--alike against her folly and her caresses. Molly was almost sorry for Mrs. Gibson, who seemed so unable to gain influence over her child. One day Cynthia read Molly's thought.

"I'm not good, and I told you so. Somehow, I cannot forgive her for her neglect of me as a child, when I would have clung to her.

Besides, I hardly ever heard from her when I was at school. And I know she put a stop to my coming over to her wedding. I saw the letter she wrote to Madame Lefevre. A child should be brought up with its parents, if it is to think them infallible when it grows up."

"But though it may know that there must be faults," replied Molly, "it ought to cover them over and try to forget their existence."

"It ought. But don't you see I have grown up outside the pale of duty and 'oughts.' Love me as I am, sweet one, for I shall never be better."

CHAPTER XX.

MRS. GIBSON'S VISITORS.

One day, to Molly's infinite surprise, Mr. Preston was announced as a caller. Mrs. Gibson and she were sitting together in the drawing-room; Cynthia was out--gone into the town a-shopping--when the door was opened, the name given, and in walked the young man. His entrance seemed to cause more confusion than Molly could well account for. He came in with the same air of easy a.s.surance with which he had received her and her father at Ashcombe Manor-house. He looked remarkably handsome in his riding-dress, and with the open-air exercise he had just had. But Mrs. Gibson's smooth brows contracted a little at the sight of him, and her reception of him was much cooler than that which she usually gave to visitors. Yet there was a degree of agitation in it, which surprised Molly a little. Mrs. Gibson was at her everlasting worsted-work frame when Mr. Preston entered the room; but somehow in rising to receive him, she threw down her basket of crewels, and, declining Molly's offer to help her, she would pick up all the reels herself, before she asked her visitor to sit down.

He stood there, hat in hand, affecting an interest in the recovery of the worsted which Molly was sure he did not feel; for all the time his eyes were glancing round the room, and taking note of the details in the arrangement.

At length they were seated, and conversation began.

"It is the first time I have been in Hollingford since your marriage, Mrs. Gibson, or I should certainly have called to pay my respects sooner."

"I know you are very busy at Ashcombe. I did not expect you to call.

Is Lord c.u.mnor at the Towers? I have not heard from her ladyship for more than a week!"

"No! he seemed still detained at Bath. But I had a letter from him giving me certain messages for Mr. Sheepshanks. Mr. Gibson is not at home, I'm afraid?"

"No. He is a great deal out--almost constantly, I may say. I had no idea that I should see so little of him. A doctor's wife leads a very solitary life, Mr. Preston!"

"You can hardly call it solitary, I should think, when you have such a companion as Miss Gibson always at hand," said he, bowing to Molly.

"Oh, but I call it solitude for a wife when her husband is away. Poor Mr. Kirkpatrick was never happy unless I always went with him;--all his walks, all his visits, he liked me to be with him. But, somehow, Mr. Gibson feels as if I should be rather in his way."

"I don't think you could ride pillion behind him on Black Bess, mamma," said Molly. "And unless you could do that, you could hardly go with him in his rounds up and down all the rough lanes."

"Oh! but he might keep a brougham! I've often said so. And then I could use it for visiting in the evenings. Really it was one reason why I didn't go to the Hollingford Charity Ball. I couldn't bring myself to use the dirty fly from the 'George.' We really must stir papa up against next winter, Molly; it will never do for you and--"

She pulled herself up suddenly, and looked furtively at Mr. Preston to see if he had taken any notice of her abruptness. Of course he had, but he was not going to show it. He turned to Molly, and said,--

"Have you ever been to a public ball yet, Miss Gibson?"