“I won’t keep you up any longer; but I’ll promise one thing in return for your pretty speech; if ever I am a duchess, I’ll come and show myself to you in all my robes and gewgaws. Good night, madam!”
“There! I knew how it would be!” said she, not resuming her seat. “And on the eve of a county election too!”
“Oh! you must not take old Mrs. Goodenough as a specimen, dear Lady Harriet. She is always a grumbler! I am sure no one else would complain of your all being as late as you liked,” said Mrs. Gibson.
“What do you say, Molly?” said Lady Harriet, suddenly turning her eyes on Molly’s face. “Don’t you think we’ve lost some of our popularity—which at this time means votes —by coming so late? Come, answer me! you used to be a famous little truth-teller.”
“I don’t know about popularity or votes,” said Molly, rather unwillingly. “But I think many people were sorry you did not come sooner; and isn’t that rather a proof of popularity?” she added.
“That’s a very neat and diplomatic answer,” said Lady Harriet, smiling, and tapping Molly’s cheek with her fan.
“Molly knows nothing about it,” said Mrs. Gibson, a little off her guard. “It would be very impertinent if she or any one else questioned Lady Cumnor’s perfect right to come when she chose.”
“Well, all I know is, I must go back to mamma now; but I shall make another raid into these regions by- and-by, and you must keep a place for me. Ah! there are——the Miss Brownings; you see I don’t forget my lesson, Miss Gibson.”
“Molly, I cannot have you speaking so to Lady Harriet,” said Mrs. Gibson, as soon as she was left alone with her stepdaughter. “You would never have known her at all, if if had not been for me, and don’t be always putting yourself into our conversation.”
“But I must speak if she asks me questions,” pleaded Molly.
“Well! if you must, you must, I acknowledge. I’m candid about that at any rate. But there’s no need for you to set up to have an opinion at your age.”
“I don’t know how to help it,” said Molly.
“She’s such a whimsical person; look there, if she’s not talking to Miss Phœbe; and Miss Phœbe is so weak she’ll be easily led away into fancying she’s hand and glove with Lady Harriet. If there is one thing I hate more than another, it is the trying to make out an intimacy with great people.”
Molly felt innocent enough; so she offered no justification of herself, and made no reply. Indeed, she was more occupied in watching Cynthia. She could not understand the change that seemed to have come over her. She was dancing, it was true, with the same lightness and grace as before; but the smooth, bounding motion, as of a feather blown onwards by the wind, was gone. She was conversing with her partner, but without the soft animation that usually shone out upon her countenance. And, when she was brought back to her seat, Molly noticed her changed colour, and her dreamily abstracted eyes.
“What is the matter, Cynthia?” asked she, in a very low voice.
“Nothing,” said Cynthia, suddenly looking up, and in an accent of what, in her, was sharpness. “Why should there be?”
“I don’t know; but you look different to what you did— tired or something.”
“There’s nothing the matter; or, if there is, don’t talk about it! It’s all your fancy.”