“I warned her against him, the day of her father’s wedding. And what a straightforward, out-spoken child it was then! I don’t believe it; it’s only one of old Sheepshanks’s stories, half invention and half deafness.”

The next day Lady Harriet rode over to Hollingford, and, for the settling of her curiosity, she called on the Miss Brownings, and introduced the subject. She would not have spoken about the rumour she had heard to any who was not a warm friend of Molly’s. If Mr. Sheepshanks had chosen to allude to it when she had been riding with her father, she could very soon have silenced him by one of the haughty looks she knew full well how to assume. But she felt as if she must know the truth, and accordingly she began thus abruptly to Miss Browning—

“What is all this I hear about my little friend Molly Gibson and Mr. Preston?”

“Oh, Lady Harriet! have you heard of it? We are so sorry!”

“Sorry for what?”

“I think, begging your ladyship’s pardon, we had better not say any more till we know how much you know,” said Miss Browning.

“Nay,” replied Lady Harriet, laughing a little, “I shan’t tell what I know till I am sure you know more. Then we’ll make an exchange if you like.”

“I’m afraid it’s no laughing matter for poor Molly,” said Miss Browning, shaking her head. “People do say such things!”

“But I don’t believe them; indeed I don’t,” burst in Miss Phœbe, half-crying.

“No more will I, then,” said Lady Harriet, taking the good lady’s hand.

“It’s all very fine, Phœbe, saying you don’t believe them; but I should like to know who it was that convinced me—sadly against my will, I am sure.”

“I only told you the facts as Mrs. Goodenough told them me, sister; but I’m sure, if you had seen poor patient Molly as I have done, sitting up in a corner of a room, looking at the “Beauties of England and Wales” till she must have been sick of them, and no one speaking to her; and she as gentle and sweet as ever at the end of the evening, though maybe a bit pale—facts or no facts, I won’t believe anything against her!”

So there sate Miss Phœbe, in tearful defiance of facts.

“And, as I said before, I’m quite of your opinion,” said Lady Harriet.

“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. “I went so far as to send for her father and tell him all about it. I thought at least he would have horsewhipped Mr. Preston; but he seems to have taken no notice of it.”

“Then we may be quite sure he knows some way of explaining matters that we don’t,” said Lady Harriet decisively. “After all, there may be a hundred and fifty perfectly natural and justifiable explanations.”

“Mr. Gibson knew of none, when I thought it my duty to speak to him,” said Miss Browning.

“Why, suppose that Mr. Preston is engaged to Miss Kirkpatrick, and Molly is confidante and messenger?”