The wedding went off much as such affairs do. Lord Cumnor and Lady Harriet drove over from the Towers, so the hour for the ceremony was as late as possible. Lord Cumnor came over to officiate as the bride’s father, and was in more open glee than either bride or bridegroom, or any one else. Lady Harriet came as a sort of amateur bridesmaid, to ‘share Molly’s duties,’ as she called it. They went from the Manor-house in two carriages to the church in the park, Mr Preston and Mr. Gibson in one, and Molly, to her dismay, shut up with Lord Cumnor and Lady Harriet in the other. Lady Harriet’s gown of white muslin had seen one or two garden-parties, and was not in the freshest order; it had been rather a freak of the young lady’s at the last moment. She was very merry, and very much inclined to talk to Molly, by way of finding out what sort of a little personage Clare was to have for her future daughter. She began —

‘We mustn’t crush this pretty muslin dress of yours. Put it over papa’s knee; he doesn’t mind it in the least.’

‘What, my dear, a white dress! — no, to be sure not. I rather like it. Besides, going to a wedding, who minds anything? It would be different if we were going to a funeral.’

Molly conscientiously strove to find out the meaning of this speech; but before she had done so, Lady Harriet spoke again, going to the point, as she always piqued herself on doing.

‘I daresay it’s something of a trial to you, this second marriage of your father’s; but you’ll find Clare the most amiable of women. She always let me have my own way, and I’ve no doubt she’ll let you have yours.’

‘I mean to try and like her,’ said Molly, in a low voice, trying hard to keep down the tears that would keep rising to her eyes this morning. ‘I’ve seen very little of her yet.’

‘Why, it’s the very best thing for you that could have happened, my dear,’ said Lord Cumnor. ‘You’re growing up into a young lady — and a very pretty young lady, too, if you’ll allow an old man to say so — and who so proper as your father’s wife to bring you out, and show you off, and take you to balls, and that kind of thing? I always said this match that is going to come off today was the most suitable thing I ever knew; and it’s even a better thing for you than for the people themselves.’

‘Poor child!’ said Lady Harriet, who had caught a sight of Molly’s troubled face, ‘the thought of balls is too much for her just now; but you’ll like having Cynthia Kirkpatrick for a companion, shan’t you, dear?’

‘Very much,’ said Molly, cheering up a little. ‘Do you know her?’

‘Oh, I’ve seen her over and over again when she was a little girl, and once or twice since. She’s the prettiest creature that you ever saw; and with eyes that mean mischief, if I’m not mistaken. But Clare kept her spirit under pretty well when she was staying with us — afraid of her being troublesome, I fancy.’

Before Molly could shape her next question, they were at the church; and she and Lady Harriet went into a pew near the door to wait for the bride, in whose train they were to proceed to the altar. The earl drove on alone to fetch her from her own house, not a quarter of a mile distant. It was pleasant to her to be led to the hymeneal altar by a belted earl, and pleasant to have his daughter as a volunteered bridesmaid. Mrs. Kirkpatrick in this flush of small gratifications, and on the brink of matrimony with a man whom she liked, and who would be bound to support her without any exertion of her own, looked beamingly happy and handsome. A little cloud came over her face at the sight of Mr. Preston — the sweet perpetuity of her smile was rather disturbed as he followed in Mr. Gibson’s wake. But his face never changed; he bowed to her gravely, and then seemed absorbed in the service. Ten minutes, and all was over. The bride and bridegroom were driving together to the Manor-house, Mr. Preston was walking thither by a short cut, and Molly was again in the carriage with my lord, rubbing his hands and chuckling, and Lady Harriet, trying to be kind and consolatory, when her silence would have been the best comfort.

Molly found out, to her dismay, that the plan was for her to return with Lord Cumnor and Lady Harriet when they went back to the Towers in the evening. In the meantime Lord Cumnor had business to do with Mr. Preston, and after the happy couple had driven off on their week’s holiday tour, she was to be left alone with the formidable Lady Harriet. When they were by themselves after all the others had been thus disposed of, Lady Harriet sate still over the drawing-room fire, holding a screen between it and her face, but gazing intently at Molly for a minute or two. Molly was fully conscious of this prolonged look, and was trying to get up her courage to return the stare, when Lady Harriet suddenly said —

‘I like you; — you are a little wild creature, and I want to tame you. Come here, and sit on this stool by me. What is your name? or what do they call you? — as North-country people would express it.’

‘Molly Gibson. My real name is Mary.’

‘Molly is a nice, soft-sounding name. People in the last century weren’t afraid of homely names; now we are all so smart and fine: no more “Lady Bettys” now. I almost wonder they haven’t re-christened all the worsted and knitting-cotton that bears her name. Fancy Lady Constantia’s cotton, or Lady Anna–Maria’s worsted.’

‘I didn’t know there was a Lady Betty’s cotton,’ said Molly.

‘That proves you don’t do fancy-work! You’ll find Clare will set you to it, though. She used to set me at piece after piece: knights kneeling to ladies; impossible flowers. But I must do her the justice to add that when I got tired of them she finished them herself. I wonder how you’ll get on together?’

‘So do I!’ sighed out Molly, under her breath.

‘I used to think I managed her, till one day an uncomfortable suspicion arose that all the time she had been managing me. Still it’s easy work to let oneself be managed; at any rate till one wakens up to the consciousness of the process, and then it may become amusing, if one takes it in that light.’

‘I should hate to be managed,’ said Molly, indignantly. ‘I’ll try and do what she wishes for papa’s sake, if she’ll only tell me outright; but I should dislike to be trapped into anything.’

‘Now I,’ said Lady Harriet, ‘am too lazy to avoid traps; and I rather like to remark the cleverness with which they’re set. But then of course I know that, if I choose to exert myself, I can break through the withes of green flax with which they try to bind me. Now, perhaps, you won’t be able.’

‘I don’t quite understand what you mean,’ said Molly.

‘Oh, well — never mind; I daresay it’s as well for you that you shouldn’t. The moral of all I have been saying is, “Be a good girl, and suffer yourself to be led, and you’ll find your new stepmother the sweetest creature imaginable.” You’ll get on capitally with her, I make no doubt. How you’ll get on with her daughter is another affair; but I daresay very well. Now we’ll ring for tea; for I suppose that heavy breakfast is to stand for our lunch.’

Mr. Preston came into the room just at this time, and Molly was a little surprised at Lady Harriet’s cool manner of dismissing him, remembering as she did how Mr. Preston had implied his intimacy with her ladyship the evening before at dinner-time.

‘I cannot bear that sort of person,’ said Lady Harriet, almost before he was out of hearing; ‘giving himself airs of gallantry towards one to whom his simple respect is all his duty. I can talk to one of my father’s labourers with pleasure, while with a man like that underbred fop I am all over thorns and nettles. What is it the Irish call that style of creature? They’ve got some capital word for it, I know. What is it?’

‘I don’t know — I never heard it,’ said Molly, a little ashamed of her ignorance.

‘Oh! that shows you’ve never read Miss Edgeworth’s tales; — now, have you? If you had, you’d have recollected that there was such a word, even if you didn’t remember what it was. If you’ve never read those stories, they would be just the thing to beguile your solitude — vastly improving and moral, and yet quite sufficiently interesting. I’ll lend them to you while you’re all alone.’

‘I’m not alone. I’m not at home, but on a visit to the Miss Brownings.’

‘Then I’ll bring them to you. I know the Miss Brownings; they used to come regularly on the school-day to the Towers. Pecksy and Flapsy I used to call them. I like the Miss Brownings; one gets enough of respect from them at any rate; and I’ve always wanted to see the kind of menage of such people. I’ll bring you a whole pile of Miss Edgeworth’s stories, my dear.’

Molly sate quite silent for a minute or two; then she mustered up courage to speak out what was in her mind.

‘Your ladyship’ (the title was the firstfruits of the lesson, as Molly took it, on paying due respect)—‘your ladyship keeps speaking of the sort of — the class of people to which I belong as if it was a kind of strange animal you were talking about; yet you talk so openly to me that —’

‘Well, go on — I like to hear you.’

Still silence.

‘You think me in your heart a little impertinent — now, don’t you?’ said Lady Harriet, almost kindly.

Molly held her peace for two or three moments; then she lifted her beautiful, honest eyes to Lady Harriet’s face, and said —

‘Yes! — a little. But I think you a great many other things.’

‘We’ll leave the “other things” for the present. Don’t you see, little one, I talked after my kind, just as you talk after your kind. It’s only on the surface with both of us. Why, I daresay some of your good Hollingford ladies talk of the poor people in a manner which they would consider as impertinent in their turn, if they could hear it. But I ought to be more considerate when I remember how often my blood has boiled at the modes of speech and behaviour of one of my aunts, mamma’s sister, Lady — No! I won’t name names. Any one who earns his livelihood by an exercise of head or hands, from professional people and rich merchants down to labourers, she calls “persons.” She would never in her most slip-slop talk accord them even the conventional title of “gentlemen;” and the way in which she takes possession of human beings, “my woman,” “my people,”— but, after all, it is only a way of speaking. I ought not to have used it to you; but somehow I separate you from all these Hollingford people.’

‘But why?’ persevered Molly. ‘I’m one of them.’

‘Yes, you I are. But — now don’t reprove me again for impertinence — most of them are so unnatural in their exaggerated respect and admiration when they come up to the Towers, and put on so much pretence by way of fine manners, that they only make themselves objects of ridicule. You at least are simple and truthful, and that’s why I separate you in my own mind from them, and have talked unconsciously to you as I would — Well! now here’s another piece of impertinence — as I would to my equal — in rank, I mean; for I don’t set myself up in solid things as any better than my neighbours. Here’s tea, however, come in time to stop me from growing too humble.’

It was a very pleasant little tea in the fading September twilight. just as it was ended, in came Mr. Preston again.

‘Lady Harriet, will you allow me the pleasure of showing you some alterations I have made in the flower-garden — in which I have tried to consult your taste — before it grows dark?’

‘Thank you, Mr. Preston. I will ride over with papa some day, and we will see if we approve of them.’

Mr. Preston’s brow flushed. But he affected not to perceive Lady Harriet’s haughtiness, and, turning to Molly, he said —

‘Will not you come out, Miss Gibson, and see something of the gardens? You haven’t been out at all, I think, excepting to church.’

Molly did not like the idea of going out for a tete-a-tete walk with Mr. Preston; yet she pined for a little fresh air, would have liked to have seen the gardens, and have looked at the Manor-house from different aspects; and, besides this, much as she recoiled from Mr. Preston, she felt sorry for him under the repulse he had just received. While she was hesitating, and slowly tending towards consent, Lady Harriet spoke —

‘I cannot spare Miss Gibson. If she would like to see the place, I will bring her over some day myself.’

When he had left the room, Lady Harriet said —

‘I daresay it’s my own lazy selfishness has kept you indoors all day against your will. But, at any rate, you are not to go out walking with that man. I’ve an instinctive aversion to him; not entirely instinctive either; it has some foundation in fact; and I desire you don’t allow him ever to get intimate with you. He’s a very clever land-agent, and does his duty by papa, and I don’t choose to be taken up for libel; but remember what I say!’

Then the carriage came round, and after numberless last words from the earl — who appeared to have put off every possible direction to the moment when he stood, like an awkward Mercury, balancing himself on the step of the carriage — they drove back to the Towers.

‘Would you rather come in and dine with us — we should send you home, of course — or go home straight?’ asked Lady Harriet of Molly. She and her father had both been sleeping till they drew up at the bottom of the flight of steps.

‘Tell the truth, now and evermore. Truth is generally amusing, if it’s nothing else!’

‘I would rather go back to Miss Brownings’ at once, please,’ said Molly, with a nightmare-like recollection of the last, the only evening she had spent at the Towers.

Lord Cumnor was standing on the steps, waiting to hand his daughter out of the carriage. Lady Harriet stopped to kiss Molly on the forehead, and to say —

‘I shall come some day soon, and bring you a load of Miss Edgeworth’s tales, and make further acquaintance with Pecksy and Flapsy.’

‘No, don’t, please,’ said Molly, taking hold of her, to detain her. ‘You must not come — indeed you must not.’

‘Why not?’

‘Because I would rather not — because I think that I ought not to have any one coming to see me who laughs at the friends I am staying with, and calls them names.’ Molly’s heart beat very fast, but she meant every word that she said.

‘My dear little woman!’ said Lady Harriet, bending over her and speaking quite gravely. ‘I’m very sorry to have called them names — very, very sorry to have hurt you. If I promise you to be respectful to them in word and deed — and in very thought, if I can — you’ll let me then, won’t you?’

Molly hesitated. ‘I’d better go home at once; I shall only say wrong things — and there’s Lord Cumnor waiting all this time.’

‘Let him alone; he’s very well amused hearing all the news of the day from Brown. Then I shall come — under promise?’

So Molly drove off in solitary grandeur; and Miss Brownings’ knocker was loosened on its venerable hinges by the never-ending peal of Lord Cumnor’s footman.

They were full of welcome, full of curiosity. All through the long day they had been missing their bright young visitor, and three or four times in every hour they had been wondering and settling what everybody was doing at that exact minute. What had become of Molly during all the afternoon, had been a great perplexity to them; and they were very much oppressed with a sense of the great honour she had received in being allowed to spend so many hours............