“Well, well! Perhaps it’s right. I was not so bad about it, was I, Roger? Poor Osborne needn’t have been so secret with me. I asked your Miss Cynthia out here—and her mother and all—my bark is worse than my bite. For, if I had a wish on earth, it was to see Osborne married as befitted one of an old stock, and he went and chose out this French girl, of no family at all, only a”—

“Never mind what she was; look at what she is! I wonder you are no more taken with her humility and sweetness, father!”

“I don’t even call her pretty,” said the Squire uneasily, for he dreaded a repetition of the arguments which Roger had often used, to make him give Aimée her proper due of affection and position. “Now, your Miss Cynthia was pretty; I will say that for her, the baggage! And to think that when you two lads flew right in your father’s face, and picked out girls below you in rank and family, you should neither of you have set your fancies on my little Molly there! I dare say I should ha’ been angry enough at the time; but the lassie would ha’ found her way to my heart, as never this French lady, nor t’ other one could ha’ done.”

Roger did not answer.

“I don’t see why you mightn’t put up for her still. I’m humble enough now, and you’re not heir as Osborne was who married a servant-maid. Don’t you think you could turn your thoughts upon Molly Gibson, Roger?”

“No!” said Roger shortly. “It’s too late—too late. Don’t let us talk any more of my marrying. Isn’t this the five-acre field?” And soon he was discussing the relative values of meadow, arable and pasture land with his father, as heartily as if he had never known Molly, or loved Cynthia. But the Squire was not in such good spirits, and went but heavily into the discussion. At the end of it he said, àpropos de bottes—

“But don’t you think you could like her if you tried, Roger?”

Roger knew perfectly well to what his father was alluding; but for an instant he was on the point of pretending to misunderstand. At length, however, he said, in a low voice—

“I shall never try, father. Don’t let us talk any more about it. As I said before, it’s too late.”

The Squire was like a child to whom some toy has been refused; from time to time the thought of his disappointment in this matter recurred to his mind; and then he took to blaming Cynthia as the primary cause of Roger’s present indifference to womankind.

It so happened that, on Molly’s last morning at the Hall, she received her first letter from Cynthia—Mrs. Henderson. It was just before breakfast-time; Roger was out of doors, Aimée had not as yet come down; Molly was alone in the dining-room, where the table was already laid. She had just finished reading her letter when the Squire came in, and she immediately and joyfully told him what the morning had brought to her. But when she saw the Squire’s face, she could have bitten her tongue out for having named Cynthia’s name to him. He looked vexed and depressed.

“I wish I might never hear of her again—I do. She’s been the bane of my Roger, that’s what she has. I haven’t slept half the night, and it’s all her fault. Why, there’s my boy saying now that he has no heart for ever marrying, poor lad! I wish it had been you, Molly, my lads had taken a fancy for. I told Roger so t’other day, and I said that for all you were beneath what I ever thought to see them marry—well—it’s of no use—it’s too late, now, as he said. Only never let me hear that baggage’s name again, that’s all, and no offence to you either, lassie. I know you love the wench; but, if you’ll take an old man’s word, you’re worth a score of her. I wish young men would think so too,” he muttered as he went to the side- table to carve the ham, while Molly poured out the tea—her heart very hot all the time, and effectually silenced for a space. It was with the greatest difficulty that she could keep tears of mortification from falling. She felt altogether in a wrong position in that house, which had been like a home to her until this last visit. What with Mrs. Goodenough’s remarks, and now this speech of the Squire’s implying—at least to her susceptible imagination—that his father had proposed her as a wife to Roger, and that