Molly suddenly felt as if she could scarcely keep from crying – a minute ago he had been so near to her, and talking so pleasantly and confidentially; and now he almost seemed as if he had forgotten her existence.
His was not the poor vanity that thinks more of the possible mortification of a refusal than of the precious jewel of a bride that may be won.
Hollingford speculated much on which young lady would become Mrs Gibson, and was rather sorry when the talk about possibilities, and the gossip about probabilities with regard to the handsome young surgeon’s marriage, ended in the most natural manner in the world, by his marrying his predecessor’s niece.
CHAPTER 1 “Haste to the Wedding” “Wooed and married and a’.” “Edith!” said Margaret, gently, “Edith!” But, as Margaret half suspected, Edith had fallen asleep. She lay curled up on the sofa in the back drawing-room in Harley.
In such towns in the south of England, Margaret had seen the shopmen, when not employed in their business, lounging a little at their doors, enjoying the fresh air, and the look up and down the street. Here, if they had any leisure from customers, they made themselves business in the shop – even, Margaret fancied, to the unnecessary unrolling and rerolling of ribbons.
Thou’d best not put that nonsense i’ the girl’s head I can tell thee; I’d rather see her earning her bread by the sweat of brow, as the Bible tells her she should do, ay, though she never got butter to her bread, than be like a do-nothing lady, worrying shopmen all morning, and screeching at her pianny all afternoon, and going to bed without having done a good turn to any one of God’s creatures but herself.
And that’s a less sin, to my mind, to making men’s hearts so hard that they’ll not do a kindness to them as needs it, or help on the right and just cause, though it goes again the strong hand.
There’s iron, they say, in all our blood, And a grain or two perhaps is good; But his, he makes me harshly feel, Has got a little too much of steel.
I have been so curt, so abrupt, so abominably dull, that I’ll answer for it he thinks me worthy to be a man.
But to-night they were unusually late, and the aristocratic ozone being absent from the atmosphere, there was a flatness about the dancing of all those who considered themselves above the plebeian ranks of the tradespeople.
Oh! Margaret, could you not have loved me? I am but uncouth and hard, but I would never had led you into any falsehood for me.
The air on the heights was so still that nothing seemed to stir. Now and then a yellow leaf came floating down from the trees, detached from no outward violence, but only because its life had reached its full limit and then ceased.
I don’t think I am pretty,′ thought Molly, as she turned away from the glass; ‘and yet I am not sure.’ She would have been sure, if, instead of inspecting herself with such solemnity, she had smiled her own sweet merry smile, and called out the gleam of her teeth, and the charm of her dimples.
I shall not be at home until the afternoon, my dear! But I hope you will not find it dull. I don’t think you will, for you are something like me, my love – never less alone than when alone, as one of the great authors has justly expressed it.
They could not understand how her heart was aching all the time, with a heavy pressure that no sighs could lift off or relieve, and how constant exertion for her perceptive faculties was the only way to keep herself from crying out with pain.
You are vexed,′ said she, sadly; ‘yet how can I help it?’ She looked so truly grieved as she said this, that he struggled for a moment with his real disappointment, and then answered more cheerfully, but still with a little hardness in his tone:.
No propiamente incorrecto, pero tampoco del todo acertado.
But how does your ladyship explain away her meetings with Mr Preston in all sorts of unlikely and open-air places?′ asked Miss Browning, who, to do her justice, would have been only too glad to join Molly’s partisans, if she could have preserved her character for logical deduction at the same time.
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.
It was all my money; it was not my all,” replied Mr Benson.
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.