"Mr. Gibson knew of none when I thought it my duty to speak to him,"

said Miss Browning.

"Why, suppose that Mr. Preston is engaged to Miss Kirkpatrick, and Molly is confidante and messenger?"

"I don't see that your ladyship's supposition much alters the blame.

Why, if he is honourably engaged to Cynthia Kirkpatrick, does he not visit her openly at her home in Mr. Gibson's house? Why does Molly lend herself to clandestine proceedings?"

"One can't account for everything," said Lady Harriet, a little impatiently, for reason was going hard against her. "But I choose to have faith in Molly Gibson. I'm sure she's not done anything very wrong. I've a great mind to go and call on her--Mrs. Gibson is confined to her room with this horrid influenza--and take her with me on a round of calls through this little gossiping town,--on Mrs.

Goodenough, or Badenough, who seems to have been propagating all these stories. But I've not time to-day. I've to meet papa at three, and it's three now. Only remember, Miss Phoebe, it's you and I against the world, in defence of a distressed damsel."

"Don Quixote and Sancho Panza!" said she to herself as she ran lightly down Miss Browning's old-fashioned staircase.

"Now, I don't think that's pretty of you, Phoebe," said Miss Browning in some displeasure, as soon as she was alone with her sister. "First, you convince me against my will, and make me very unhappy; and I have to do unpleasant things, all because you've made me believe that certain statements are true; and then you turn round and cry, and say you don't believe a word of it all, making me out a regular ogre and backbiter. No! it's of no use. I shan't listen to you." So she left Miss Phoebe in tears, and locked herself up in her own room.

Lady Harriet, meanwhile, was riding homewards by her father's side, apparently listening to all he chose to say, but in reality turning over the probabilities and possibilities that might account for these strange interviews between Molly and Mr. Preston. It was a case of _parler de l'ane et l'on en voit les oreilles_. At a turn in the road they saw Mr. Preston a little way before them, coming towards them on his good horse, _point device_, in his riding attire.

The earl, in his thread-bare coat, and on his old brown cob, called out cheerfully,--

"Aha! here's Preston. Good-day to you. I was just wanting to ask you about that slip of pasture-land on the Home Farm. John Brickkill wants to plough it up and crop it. It's not two acres at the best."

While they were talking over this bit of land, Lady Harriet came to her resolution. As soon as her father had finished, she said,--"Mr.

Preston, perhaps you will allow me to ask you one or two questions to relieve my mind, for I am in some little perplexity at present."

[Ill.u.s.tration: LADY HARRIET ASKS ONE OR TWO QUESTIONS.]

"Certainly; I shall only be too happy to give you any information in my power." But the moment after he had made this polite speech, he recollected Molly's speech--that she would refer her case to Lady Harriet. But the letters had been returned, and the affair was now wound up. She had come off conqueror, he the vanquished. Surely she would never have been so ungenerous as to appeal after that.

"There are reports about Miss Gibson and you current among the gossips of Hollingford. Are we to congratulate you on your engagement to that young lady?"

"Ah! by the way, Preston, we ought to have done it before,"

interrupted Lord c.u.mnor, in hasty goodwill. But his daughter said quietly, "Mr. Preston has not yet told us if the reports are well founded, papa."

She looked at him with the air of a person expecting an answer, and expecting a truthful answer.

"I am not so fortunate," replied he, trying to make his horse appear fidgety, without incurring observation.

"Then I may contradict that report?" asked Lady Harriet quickly. "Or is there any reason for believing that in time it may come true? I ask because such reports, if unfounded, do harm to young ladies."

"Keep other sweethearts off," put in Lord c.u.mnor, looking a good deal pleased at his own discernment. Lady Harriet went on:--

"And I take a great interest in Miss Gibson."

Mr. Preston saw from her manner that he was "in for it," as he expressed it to himself. The question was, how much or how little did she know?

"I have no expectation or hope of ever having a nearer interest in Miss Gibson than I have at present. I shall be glad if this straightforward answer relieves your ladyship from your perplexity."

He could not help the touch of insolence that accompanied these last words. It was not in the words themselves, nor in the tone in which they were spoken, nor in the look which accompanied them, it was in all; it implied a doubt of Lady Harriet's right to question him as she did; and there was something of defiance in it as well. But this touch of insolence put Lady Harriet's mettle up; and she was not one to check herself, in any course, for the opinion of an inferior.

"Then, sir! are you aware of the injury you may do to a young lady's reputation if you meet her, and detain her in long conversations, when she is walking by herself, unaccompanied by any one? You give rise--you have given rise to reports."

"My dear Harriet, are not you going too far? You don't know--Mr.

Preston may have intentions--unacknowledged intentions."

"No, my lord. I have no intentions with regard to Miss Gibson. She may be a very worthy young lady--I have no doubt she is. Lady Harriet seems determined to push me into such a position that I cannot but acknowledge myself to be--it is not enviable--not pleasant to own--but I am, in fact, a jilted man; jilted by Miss Kirkpatrick, after a tolerably long engagement. My interviews with Miss Gibson were not of the most agreeable kind--as you may conclude when I tell you she was, I believe, the instigator--certainly, she was the agent in this last step of Miss Kirkpatrick's. Is your ladyship's curiosity" (with an emphasis on this last word) "satisfied with this rather mortifying confession of mine?"

"Harriet, my dear, you've gone too far--we had no right to pry into Mr. Preston's private affairs."

"No more I had," said Lady Harriet, with a smile of winning frankness: the first smile she had accorded to Mr. Preston for many a long day; ever since the time, years ago, when, presuming on his handsomeness, he had a.s.sumed a tone of gallant familiarity with Lady Harriet, and paid her personal compliments as he would have done to an equal.

"But he will excuse me, I hope," continued she, still in that gracious manner which made him feel that he now held a much higher place in her esteem than he had had at the beginning of their interview, "when he learns that the busy tongues of the Hollingford ladies have been speaking of my friend, Miss Gibson, in the most unwarrantable manner; drawing unjustifiable inferences from the facts of that intercourse with Mr. Preston, the nature of which he has just conferred such a real obligation on me by explaining."

"I think I need hardly request Lady Harriet to consider this explanation of mine as confidential," said Mr. Preston.

"Of course, of course!" said the earl; "every one will understand that." And he rode home, and told his wife and Lady Cuxhaven the whole conversation between Lady Harriet and Mr. Preston; in the strictest confidence, of course. Lady Harriet had to stand a good many strictures on manners, and proper dignity for a few days after this. However, she consoled herself by calling on the Gibsons; and, finding that Mrs. Gibson (who was still an invalid) was asleep at the time, she experienced no difficulty in carrying off the unconscious Molly for a walk, which Lady Harriet so contrived that they twice pa.s.sed through all the length of the princ.i.p.al street of the town, loitered at Grinstead's for half an hour, and wound up by Lady Harriet's calling on the Miss Brownings, who, to her regret, were not at home.

"Perhaps, it's as well," said she, after a minute's consideration.

"I'll leave my card, and put your name down underneath it, Molly."

Molly was a little puzzled by the manner in which she had been taken possession of, like an inanimate chattel, for all the afternoon, and exclaimed,--"Please, Lady Harriet--I never leave cards; I have not got any, and on the Miss Brownings, of all people; why, I am in and out whenever I like."

"Never mind, little one. To-day you shall do everything properly, and according to full etiquette."

"And now tell Mrs. Gibson to come out to the Towers for a long day; we will send the carriage for her whenever she will let us know that she is strong enough to come. Indeed, she had better come for a few days; at this time of the year it doesn't do for an invalid to be out in the evenings, even in a carriage." So spoke Lady Harriet, standing on the white door-steps at Miss Brownings', and holding Molly's hand while she wished her good-by. "You'll tell her, dear, that I came partly to see her--but that finding her asleep, I ran off with you, and don't forget about her coming to stay with us for change of air--mamma will like it, I'm sure--and the carriage, and all that.

And now good-by, we've done a good day's work! And better than you're aware of," continued she, still addressing Molly, though the latter was quite out of hearing. "Hollingford is not the place I take it to be, if it doesn't veer round in Miss Gibson's favour after my to-day's trotting of that child about."

CHAPTER L.

CYNTHIA AT BAY.

Mrs. Gibson was slow in recovering her strength after the influenza, and before she was well enough to accept Lady Harriet's invitation to the Towers, Cynthia came home from London. If Molly had thought her manner of departure was scarcely as affectionate and considerate as it might have been,--if such a thought had crossed Molly's fancy for an instant, she was repentant for it as soon as ever Cynthia returned, and the girls met together face to face, with all the old familiar affection, going upstairs to the drawing-room, with their arms round each other's waists, and sitting there together hand in hand. Cynthia's whole manner was more quiet than it had been, when the weight of her unpleasant secret rested on her mind, and made her alternately despondent or flighty.

"After all," said Cynthia, "there's a look of home about these rooms which is very pleasant. But I wish I could see you looking stronger, mamma! that's the only unpleasant thing. Molly, why didn't you send for me?"

"I wanted to do," began Molly--

"But I wouldn't let her," said Mrs. Gibson. "You were much better in London than here, for you could have done me no good; and your letters were very agreeable to read; and now Helen is better, and I'm nearly well, and you've come home just at the right time, for everybody is full of the Charity Ball."

"But we are not going this year, mamma," said Cynthia decidedly.

"It's on the 25th, isn't it? and I'm sure you'll never be well enough to take us."

"You really seem determined to make me out worse than I am, child,"

said Mrs. Gibson, rather querulously, she being one of those who, when their malady is only trifling, exaggerate it, but when it is really of some consequence, are unwilling to sacrifice any pleasures by acknowledging it. It was well for her in this instance that her husband had wisdom and authority enough to forbid her going to this ball, on which she had set her heart; but the consequence of his prohibition was an increase of domestic plaintiveness and low spirits, which seemed to tell on Cynthia--the bright gay Cynthia herself--and it was often hard work for Molly to keep up the spirits of two other people as well as her own. Ill-health might account for Mrs. Gibson's despondency, but why was Cynthia so silent, not to say so sighing? Molly was puzzled to account for it; and all the more perplexed because from time to time Cynthia kept calling upon her for praise for some unknown and mysterious virtue that she had practised; and Molly was young enough to believe that, after any exercise of virtue, the spirits rose, cheered up by an approving conscience.