“I shouldn’t have thought of going up,” said Roger, reddening as if he had been accused of spending another’s money instead of his own, “if I hadn’t had to go up on business. Lord Hollingford has written for me; he knows my great wish for employment, and has heard of something which he considers suitable; there’s his letter if you care to read it. But it does not tell anything definitely.”

Osborne read the letter and returned it to Roger. After a moment or two of silence he said—“Why do you want money? Are we taking too much from you? It’s a great shame of me; but what can I do? Only suggest a career for me, and I’ll follow it to-morrow.” He spoke as if Roger had been reproaching him.

“My dear fellow, don’t get those notions into your head! I must do something for myself some time, and I’ve been on the look-out. Besides, I want my father to go on with his drainage; it would do good both to his health and his spirits. If I can advance any part of the money requisite, he and you shall pay me interest until you can return the capital.”

“Roger, you’re the providence of the family,” exclaimed Osborne, suddenly struck by admiration of his brother’s conduct, and forgetting to contrast it with his own.

So Roger went up to London, and Osborne followed him; and for two or three weeks the Gibsons saw nothing of the brothers. But, as wave succeeds to wave, so interest succeeds to interest. “The family,” as they were called, came down for their autumn-sojourn at the Towers, and again the house was full of visitors, and the Towers servants, and carriages, and liveries were seen in the two streets of Hollingford, just as they might have been seen for scores of autumns past.

So runs the round of life from day to day. Mrs. Gibson found the chances of intercourse with the Towers rather more personally exciting than Roger’s visits, or the rarer calls of Osborne Hamley. Cynthia had an old antipathy to the great family, who had made so much of her mother and so little of her; and whom she considered as in some measure the cause why she had seen so little of her mother, in the days when the little girl had craved for love and found none. Moreover, Cynthia missed her slave; although she did not care for Roger one thousandth part of what he did for her, yet she had found it not unpleasant to have a man whom she thoroughly respected, and whom men in general respected, the subject of her eye, the glad ministrant to each scarce-spoken wish, a person in whose sight all her words were pearls or diamonds, all her actions heavenly graciousness, and in whose thoughts she reigned supreme. She had no modest unconsciousness about her; and yet she was not vain. She knew of all this worship, and, when from circumstances she no longer received it, she missed it. The Earl and the Countess, Lord Hollingford and Lady Harriet, lords and ladies in general, liveries, dresses, bags of game, and rumours of riding parties, were as nothing to her, compared with Roger’s absence. And yet she did not love him. No, she did not love him. Molly knew that Cynthia did not love him. Molly grew angry with her many and many a time, as the conviction of this fact was forced upon her. Molly did not know her own feelings; Roger had no overwhelming interest in what they might be; while his very life-breath seemed to depend on what Cynthia felt and thought. Therefore, Molly had keen insight into her “sister’s” heart, and she knew that Cynthia did not love Roger. Molly could have cried with passionate regret at the thought of the unvalued treasure lying at Cynthia’s feet; and it would have been a merely unselfish regret. It was the old fervid tenderness: “Do not wish for the moon, O my darling, for I cannot give it thee.” Cynthia’s love was the moon Roger yearned for; and Molly saw that it was far away and out of reach, else would she have strained her heart-cords to give it to Roger.

“I am his sister,” she would say to herself. “That old bond is not done away with, though he is too much absorbed by Cynthia to speak about it just now. His mother called me ‘Fanny’; it was almost like an adoption. I must wait and watch, and see if I can do anything for my brother.”

One day Lady Harriet came to call on the Gibsons, or rather on Mrs. Gibson; for the latter retained her old jealousy if any one else in Hollingford was supposed to be on intimate terms at the great house, or in the least acquainted with their plans. Mr. Gibson might possibly know as much, but then he was professionally bound to secrecy. Out of the house she considered Mr. Preston as her rival, and he was