When Molly went down to lunch, she found “cousin Charles”, with his aunt, Lady Cumnor. He was a certain Sir Charles Morton, the son of Lady Cumnor’s only sister: a plain, sandy-haired man of thirty- five or so; immensely rich, very sensible, awkward, and reserved. He had had a chronic attachment, of many years’ standing, to his cousin, Lady Harriet, who did not care for him in the least, although it was the marriage very earnestly desired for her by her mother. Lady Harriet was, however, on friendly terms with him, ordered him about, and told him what to do, and what to leave undone, without having even a doubt as to the willingness of his obedience. She had given him his cue about Molly.

“Now, Charles, the girl wants to be interested and amused without having to take any trouble for herself; she’s too delicate to be very active either in mind or body. Just look after her when the house gets full, and place her where she can hear and see everything and everybody, without any fuss and responsibility.”

So Sir Charles began this day at luncheon by taking Molly under his quiet protection. He did not say much to her; but what he did say was thoroughly friendly and sympathetic; and Molly began, as he and Lady Harriet intended that she should, to have a kind of pleasant reliance upon him. Then, in the evening, while the rest of the family were at dinner—after Molly’s tea and hour of quiet repose, Parkes came and dressed her in some of the new clothes prepared for the Kirkpatrick visit, and did her hair in some new and pretty way, so that, when Molly looked at herself in the cheval-glass, she scarcely knew the elegant reflection to be that of herself. She was fetched down by Lady Harriet into the great, long, formidable drawing-room which, as an interminable place of pacing, had haunted her dreams ever since her childhood. At the further end sat Lady Cumnor at her tapestry-work; the light of fire and candle seemed all concentrated on that one bright part where presently Lady Harriet made tea, and Lord Cumnor went to sleep, and Sir Charles read passages aloud from the Edinburgh Review to the three ladies at their work.

When Molly went to bed, she was constrained to admit that staying at the Towers as a visitor was rather pleasant than otherwise; and she tried to reconcile old impressions with new ones, until she fell asleep. There was another comparatively quiet day, before the expected guests began to arrive in the evening. Lady Harriet took Molly a drive in her little pony-carriage; and, for the first time for many weeks, Molly began to feel the delightful spring of returning health; the dance of youthful spirits in the fresh air, cleared by the previous day’s rain.