Trousseaux, and preliminary ceremonies, he gave to the winds. Mr. Gibson, generous as usual, called Cynthia aside a morning or two after her engagement, and put a hundred-pound note into her hands.

“There, that’s to pay your expenses to Russia and back. I hope you’ll find your pupils obedient.”

To his surprise and rather to his discomfiture, Cynthia threw her arms round his neck and kissed him.

“You are the kindest person I know,” said she; “and I don’t know how to thank you in words.”

“If you tumble my shirt-collars again in that way, I’ll charge you for the washing. Just now, too, when I’m trying so hard to be trim and elegant, like your Mr. Henderson.”

“But you do like him, don’t you?” said Cynthia pleadingly. “He does so like you.”

“Of course. We’re all angels just now, and you’re an archangel. I hope he’ll wear as well as Roger.”

Cynthia looked grave. “That was a very silly affair,” she said. “We were two as unsuitable people”—

“It has ended, and that’s enough. Besides, I’ve no more time to waste; and there’s your smart young man coming here in all haste.”

Mr. and Mrs. Kirkpatrick sent all manner of congratulations; and Mrs. Kirkpatrick, in a private letter, assured Mrs. Gibson that her ill-timed confidence about Roger should be considered as quite private. For, as soon as Mr. Henderson had made his appearance in Hollingford, she had written a second letter, entreating them not to allude to anything she might have said in her first; which she said was written in such excitement on discovering the real state of her daughter’s affections, that she had hardly known what she said, and had exaggerated some things, and misunderstood others: all that she did know now was, that Mr. Henderson had just proposed to Cynthia, and was accepted, and that they were as happy as the day was long, and (“excuse the vanity of a mother,”) made a most lovely couple. So Mr. and Mrs. Kirkpatrick wrote back an equally agreeable letter, praising Mr. Henderson, admiring Cynthia, and generally congratulatory; insisting into the bargain that the marriage should take place from their house in Hyde Park Street, and that Mr. and Mrs. Gibson and Molly should all come up and pay them a visit. There was a little postscript at the end. “Surely you do not mean the famous traveller, Hamley, about whose discoveries all our scientific men are so much excited. You speak of him as a young Hamley, who went to Africa. Answer this question, pray, for Helen is most anxious to know.” This P.S. being in Helen’s handwriting. In her exultation at the general success of everything, and desire for sympathy, Mrs. Gibson read parts of this letter to Molly; the postscript among the rest. It made a deeper impression on Molly than even the proposed kindness of the visit to London.

There were some family consultations; but the end of them all was that the Kirkpatrick invitation was accepted. There were many small reasons for this, which were openly acknowledged; but there was one general and unspoken wish to have the ceremony performed out of the immediate neighbourhood of the two men whom Cynthia had previously rejected; that was the word now to be applied to her treatment of them. So Molly was ordered and enjoined and entreated to become strong as soon as possible, in order that her health might not prevent her attending the marriage; Mr. Gibson himself, though he thought it his duty to damp the excellent anticipations of his wife and her daughter, being not at all averse to the prospect of going to London, and seeing half-a-dozen old friends and many scientific exhibitions, independently of the very fair amount of liking which he had for his host, Mr. Kirkpatrick, himself.


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