Mrs. Gibson was feeling rather lonely “without either of her two dear girls at home,” as she phrased it, to herself as well as to others.

“Why, my sweet Molly, this is an unexpected pleasure. Only this morning I said to papa, ‘When do you think we shall see our Molly back?’ He did not say much—he never does, you know; but I am sure he thought directly of giving me this surprise, this pleasure. You’re looking a little— what shall I call it? I remember such a pretty line of poetry, ‘Oh, call her fair, not pale!’ so we’ll call you fair.”

“You’d better not call her anything, but let her get to her own room and have a good rest as soon as possible. Haven’t you got a trashy novel or two in the house? That’s the literature to send her to sleep.”

He did not leave her, till he had seen her laid on a sofa in a darkened room, with some slight pretence of reading in her hand. Then he came away, leading his wife, who turned round at the door to kiss her hand to Molly, and make a little face of unwillingness to be dragged away.

“Now, Hyacinth,” said he, as he took his wife into the drawing-room, “she will need much care. She has been overworked, and I’ve been a fool. That’s all. We must keep her from all worry and care—but I won’t answer for it that she’ll not have an illness, for all that!”

“Poor thing! she does look worn out. She is something like me, her feelings are too much for her. But, now she is come home, she shall find us as cheerful as possible. I can answer for myself; and you really must brighten up your doleful face, my dear—nothing so bad for invalids as the appearance of depression in those around them! I have had such a pleasant letter from Cynthia to-day. Uncle Kirkpatrick really seems to make so much of her, he treats her just like a daughter; he has given her a ticket for the Concerts of Ancient Music; and Mr. Henderson has been to call on her, in spite of all that has gone before.”

For an instant Mr. Gibson thought that it was easy enough for his wife to be cheerful, with the pleasant thoughts and evident anticipations she had in her mind, but a little more difficult for him to put off his doleful looks, while his own child lay in a state of suffering and illness which might be the precursor of a still worse malady. But he was always a man for immediate action, as soon as he had resolved on the course to be taken; and he knew that “some must watch, while some must sleep; so runs the world away.”

The illness which he apprehended came upon Molly; not violently or acutely, so that there was any immediate danger to be dreaded; but making a long pull upon her strength, which seemed to lessen day by day, until at last her father feared that she might become a permanent invalid. There was nothing very decided or alarming to tell Cynthia, and Mrs. Gibson kept the dark side from her in her letters. “Molly was feeling the spring weather”; or “Molly had been a good deal overdone with her stay at the Hall, and was resting”; such little sentences told nothing of Molly’s real state. But then, as Mrs. Gibson said to herself, it would be a pity to disturb Cynthia’s pleasure by telling her much about Molly; indeed, there was not much to tell, one day was so like another. But it so happened that Lady Harriet—who came, whenever she could, to sit awhile with Molly, at first against Mrs. Gibson’s will, and afterwards with her full consent—for reasons of her own, Lady Harriet wrote a letter to Cynthia, to which she was urged by Mrs. Gibson. It fell out in this manner:—One day, when Lady Harriet was sitting in the drawing-room for a few minutes, after she had been with Molly, she said—

“Really, Clare, I spend so much time in your house that I’m going to establish a work-basket here. Mary has infected me with her notability, and I’m going to work mamma a foot-stool. It is to be a surprise; and so, if I do it here, she will know nothing about it. Only I cannot match the gold beads I want for the pansies in this dear little town; and Hollingford, who could send me down stars and planets if I asked him, I make no doubt, could no more match beads than”——

“My dear Lady Harriet! you forget Cynthia! Think what a pleasure it would be to her to do anything for you.”