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............