AN ABSENT LOVER RETURNS.
Illustrationnd now it was late June; and to Molly's and her father's in pushing, and Mr. and Mrs. Kirkpatrick's in pulling, Cynthia had yielded, and had gone to her visit in London, but not the of her previous return to nurse Molly had told in her in the opinion of the little town. Her with Mr. Preston was into the shade; while every one was speaking of her warm heart. Under the of Molly's a hue, as the time when roses were in bloom.
One Mrs. Gibson Molly a great of flowers, that had been sent from the Hall. Molly still in bed, but she had just come down, and was now well to the flowers for the drawing-room, and as she did so with these blossoms, she some on each.
"Ah! these white pinks! They were Mrs. Hamley's flower; and so like her! This little of sweet briar, it the room. It has my fingers, but mind. Oh, mamma, look at this rose! I its name, but it is very rare, and up in the of the wall, near the mulberry-tree. Roger the tree for his mother with his own money when he was a boy; he it me, and me notice it."
"I it was Roger who got it now. You papa say he had him yesterday."
"No! Roger! Roger come home!" said Molly, red, then very white.
"Yes. Oh, I you had gone to papa came in, and he was called off early to Mrs. Beale. Yes, Roger up at the Hall the day yesterday."
But Molly against her chair, too to do more at the flowers for some time. She had been by the of the news. "Roger come home!"
It that Mr. Gibson was on this particular day, and he did not come home till late in the afternoon. But Molly her place in the drawing-room all the time, not going to take her siesta, so was she to about Roger's return, which as yet appeared to her almost incredible. But it was natural in reality; the long of her had her all count of time. When Roger left England, his idea was to Africa on the until he the Cape; and to make what or might to him best in of his scientific objects. To Cape Town all his had been of late; and there, two months before, he had the of Osborne's death, as well as Cynthia's of relinquishment. He did not that he was doing in returning to England immediately, and himself to the who had sent him out, with a full of the to Osborne's private marriage and death. He offered, and they his offer, to go out again for any time that they might think to the five months he was yet to them for. They were most of them of property, and saw the full of the marriage of an son, and his child as the natural to a long-descended estate. This much information, but in a more form, Mr. Gibson gave to Molly, in a very minutes. She sat up on her sofa, looking very with the on her cheeks, and the in her eyes.
"Well!" said she, when her father stopped speaking.
"Well! what?" asked he, playfully.
"Oh! why, such a number of things. I've been waiting all day to ask you all about everything. How is he looking?"
"If a man of twenty-four take to taller, I should say that he was taller. As it is, I it's only that he looks broader, stronger—more muscular."
"Oh! is he changed?" asked Molly, a little by this account.
"No, not changed; and yet not the same. He's as as a for one thing; a little of the tinge, and a as and as my bay-mare's tail."
"A beard! But go on, papa. Does he talk as he used to do? I should know his voice ten thousand."
"I didn't catch any Hottentot twang, if that's what you mean. Nor did he say, 'Cæsar and Pompey much alike, 'specially Pompey,' which is the only of language I can just at this moment."
"And which I see the of," said Mrs. Gibson, who had come into the room after the had begun; and did not what it was at. Molly fidgeted; she wanted to go on with her questions and keep her father to and matter-of-fact answers, and she that when his wife into a conversation, Mr. Gibson was very to out that he must go about some necessary piece of business.
"Tell me, how are they all on together?" It was an which she did not make in Mrs. Gibson, for Molly and her father had to keep on what they or had observed, the three who the present family at the Hall.
"Oh!" said Mr. Gibson, "Roger is to in his firm, way."
"'Things to rights.' Why, what's wrong?" asked Mrs. Gibson quickly. "The Squire and the French daughter-in-law don't on well together, I suppose? I am always so Cynthia with the she did; it would have been very for her to have been mixed up with all these complications. Poor Roger! to himself by a child when he comes home!"
"You were not in the room, my dear, when I was telling Molly of the for Roger's return; it was to put his brother's child at once into his and legal place. So now, when he the work done to his hands, he is happy and in proportion."
"Then he is not much by Cynthia's off her engagement?" (Mrs. Gibson to call it an "engagement" now.) "I did give him for very feelings."
"On the contrary, he it very acutely. He and I had a long talk about it, yesterday."
Both Molly and Mrs. Gibson would have liked to have something more about this conversation; but Mr. Gibson did not choose to go on with the subject. The only point which he was that Roger had on his right to have a personal with Cynthia; and, on that she was in London at present, had any or by letter, to her return.
Molly on with her questions on other subjects. "And Mrs. Osborne Hamley? How is she?"
"Wonderfully up by Roger's presence. I don't think I've her before; but she him the from time to time. They are good friends; and she her look when she speaks to him. I she has been aware of the Squire's wish that she should return to France; and has been hard put to it to decide to her child or not. The idea that she would have to make some such came upon her when she was by and illness, and she hasn't had any one to as to her until Roger came, upon she has reliance. He told me something of this himself."
"You to have had a long with him, papa!"
"Yes. I was going to see old Abraham, when the Squire called to me over the hedge, as I was along. He told me the news; and there was no his to come and with them. Besides, one a great of meaning out of Roger's words; it didn't take so very long a time to this much."
"I should think he would come and call upon us soon," said Mrs. Gibson to Molly, "and then we shall see how much we can manage to hear."
"Do you think he will, papa?" said Molly, more doubtfully. She the last time he was in that very room, and the with which he left it; and she that she see of this in her father's at his wife's speech.
"I can't tell, my dear. Until he's of Cynthia's intentions, it can't be very for him to come on visits of to the house in which he has her; but he's one who will always do what he thinks right, or not."
Mrs. Gibson wait till her husband had his she against a part of it.
"'Convinced of Cynthia's intentions!' I should think she had them clear! What more the man want?"
"He's not as yet that the wasn't in a fit of temporary feeling. I've told him that this was true; although I didn't it my place to to him the of that feeling. He that he can her to the footing. I don't; and I've told him so; but, of course, he needs the full that she alone can give him."
"Poor Cynthia! My child!" said Mrs. Gibson, plaintively. "What she has herself to by herself be over-persuaded by that man!"
Mr. Gibson's fire. But he his tight closed; and only said, "'That man,' indeed!" his breath.
Molly, too, had been by an or two in her father's speech. "Mere visits of ceremony!" Was it so, indeed? A "mere visit of ceremony!" Whatever it was, the call was paid many days were over. That he all the of his position Mrs. Gibson—that he was in pain all the time—was but too to Molly; but, of course, Mrs. Gibson saw nothing of this in her at the proper respect paid to her by one name was in the newspapers that his return, and about already Lord Cumnor and the Towers family had been making inquiry.
Molly was in her white invalid's dress, reading, dreaming, for the June air was so clear and ambient, the garden so full of bloom, the trees so full of leaf, that reading by the open window was only a at such a time; which, Mrs. Gibson her with about the pattern of her work. It was after lunch—orthodox calling time, when Maria in Mr. Roger Hamley. Molly started up; and then and in her place while a bronzed, bearded, man came into the room, in she at had to for the she by only two years ago. But months in the in which Roger had been age as much as years in more regions. And and while in daily of life the lines of upon the face. Moreover, the that had of late him personally were not of a nature to make him either or cheerful. But his voice was the same; that was the point of the old friend Molly caught, when he her in a than he used in speaking to her stepmother.
"I was so sorry to how you had been! You are looking but delicate!" his upon her with examination. Molly herself colour all over with the of his regard. To do something to put an end to it, she looked up, and him her soft eyes, which he to have noticed before. She at him as she still deeper, and said,—
"Oh! I am now to what I was. It would be a to be when is in its full beauty."
"I have how we—I am to you—my father can you—"
"Please don't," said Molly, the into her in of herself. He to her at once; he on as if speaking to Mrs. Gibson: "Indeed, my little sister-in-law is of talking about Monsieur le Docteur, as she calls your husband!"
"I have not had the of making Mrs. Osborne Hamley's yet," said Mrs. Gibson, aware of a which might have been from her, "and I must you to to her for my remissness. But Molly has been such a and to me—for, you know, I look upon her as my own child—that I have not gone anywhere; to the Towers, I should say, which is just like another home to me. And then I that Mrs. Osborne Hamley was of returning to France long? Still it was very remiss."
The little thus set for news of what might be going on in the Hamley family was successful. Roger answered her thus:—
"I am sure Mrs. Osborne Hamley will be very to see any friends of the family, as soon as she is a little stronger. I she will not go to France at all. She is an orphan, and I trust we shall her to with my father. But at present nothing is arranged." Then, as if to have got over his "visit of ceremony," he got up and took leave. When he was at the door he looked back, having, as he thought, a word more to say; but he what it was, for he Molly's gaze, and at discovery, and away as soon as he could.
"Poor Osborne was right!" said he. "She has into beauty, just as he said she would: or is it the which has her face? Now the next time I enter these doors, it will be to learn my fate!"
Mr. Gibson had told his wife of Roger's to have a personal with Cynthia, with a view to her what he said to her daughter. He did not see any exact for this, it is true; but he it might be that she should know all the truth in which she was concerned, and he told his wife this. But she took the into her own management, and, although she with Mr. Gibson, she named the to Cynthia; all that she said to her was—
"Your old admirer, Roger Hamley, has come home in a great hurry, in of dear Osborne's decease. He must have been to the and her little boy at the Hall. He came to call here the other day, and himself agreeable, although his manners are not by the he has on his travels. Still I he will be as a 'lion,' and the very which against my of refinement, may in a scientific traveller, who has been into more places, and more food, than any other Englishman of the day. I he has up all of the estate, for I he talks of returning to Africa, and a regular wanderer. Your name was not mentioned, but I he about you from Mr. Gibson."
"There!" said she to herself, as she up and her letter; "that can't her, or make her uncomfortable. And it's all the truth too, or very near it. Of he'll want to see her when she comes back; but by that time I do Mr. Henderson will have again, and that that will be all settled."
But Cynthia returned to Hollingford one Tuesday morning, and in answer to her mother's on the subject, would only say that Mr. Henderson had not offered again. "Why should he? She had him once, and he did not know the of her refusal, at least one of the reasons. She did not know if she should have taken him if there had been no such person as Roger Hamley in the world. No! Uncle and aunt Kirkpatrick had anything about Roger's offer,—nor had her cousins. She had always her wish to keep it a secret, and she had not mentioned it to any one, other people might have done." Underneath this light and careless there were other feelings; but Mrs. Gibson was not one to the surface. She had set her on Mr. Henderson's marrying Cynthia very early in their acquaintance; and to know, firstly, that the same wish had entered into his head, and that Roger's to Cynthia, with its consequences, had been the obstacle; and secondly, that Cynthia herself with all the opportunities of which she had had, had failed to a of the offer,—was, as Mrs. Gibson said, "enough to a saint." All the of the day she to Cynthia as a and daughter; Molly not make out why, and it for Cynthia, until the said, bitterly, "Never mind, Molly. Mamma is only Mr.—because I have not come an lady."
"Yes; and I am sure you might have done,—there's the ingratitude! I am not so as to want you to do what you can't do!" said Mrs. Gibson, querulously.
"But where's the ingratitude, mamma? I'm very much tired, and that makes me stupid; but I cannot see the ingratitude." Cynthia spoke very wearily, her on the sofa-cushions, as if she did not to have an answer.
"Why, don't you see we are doing all we can for you; you well, and sending you to London; and when you might us of the of all this, you don't."
"No! Cynthia, I will speak," said Molly, all with indignation, and pushing away Cynthia's hand. "I am sure papa not feel, and not mind, any he about his daughters. And I know well that he not wish us to marry, unless—" She and stopped.
"Unless what?" said Mrs. Gibson, half-mocking.
"Unless we love some one very indeed," said Molly, in a low, tone.
"Well, after this tirade—really indelicate, I must say—I have done. I will neither help any love-affairs of you two ladies. In my days we were of the of our elders." And she left the room to put into an idea which had just her: to a to Mrs. Kirkpatrick, her her of Cynthia's "unfortunate entanglement," and "delicate of honour," and of her entire to all the of the world, Mr. Henderson being from the category.
"Oh, dear!" said Molly, herself in a chair, with a of relief, as Mrs. Gibson left the room; "how I do since I've been ill! But I couldn't her to speak as if papa you anything."
"I'm sure he doesn't, Molly. You need not him on my account. But I'm sorry still looks upon me as 'an encumbrance,' as the in The Times always call us children. But I've been an to her all my life. I'm very much into about everything, Molly. I shall try my luck in Russia. I've of a as English at Moscow, in a family owning whole of land, and by the hundred. I put off my till I came home; I shall be as much out of the way there as if I was married. Oh, dear! all night isn't good for the spirits. How is Mr. Preston?"
"Oh, he has taken Cumnor Grange, three miles away, and he comes in to the Hollingford tea-parties now. I saw him once in the street, but it's a question which of us the to out of the other's way."
"You've not said anything about Roger, yet."
"No; I didn't know if you would to hear. He is very much older-looking; a grown-up man. And papa says he is much graver. Ask me any questions, if you want to know, but I have only him once."
"I was in he would have left the by this time. Mamma said he was going to travel again."
"I can't tell," said Molly. "I you know," she continued, but a little she spoke, "that he to see you?"
"No! I heard. I wish he would have been satisfied with my letter. It was as as I make it. If I say I won't see him, I wonder if his will or mine will be the strongest?"
"His," said Molly. "But you must see him; you it to him. He will be satisfied without it."
"Suppose he talks me into the engagement? I should only it off again."
"Surely you can't be 'talked round' if your mind is up. But it is not really, Cynthia?" asked she, with a little itself in her face.
"It is up. I am going to teach little Russian girls; and am going to nobody."
"You are not serious, Cynthia. And yet it is a very thing."
But Cynthia into one of her wild moods, and no more or meaning was to be got out of her at the time.
