“Lady Harriet, will you allow me the pleasure of showing you some alterations I have made on 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 walk with only Mr. Preston; yet she pined for a little fresh air, would have been glad to see the gardens, and look 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 the 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.