replied Mrs Kirkpatrick, in a sharper voice than before, aware that they were wanting her at the piano, and anxious to get the business in hand done as soon as possible.Molly stood still for a minute, then, looking up, she said, softly, - 'Would you mind coming with me, please?' 'No! not I!' said Mrs Kirkpatrick, seeing that her compliance was likely to be the most speedy way of getting through the affair; so she took Molly's hand, and, on the way, in passing the group at the piano, she said, smiling, in her pretty genteel manner, - 'Our little friend here is shy and modest, and wants me to accompany her to Lady Cumnor to wish good-night; her father has come for her, and she is going away.' Molly did not know how it was afterwards, but she pulled her hand out of Mrs Kirkpatrick's on hearing these words, and going a step or two in advance came up to Lady Cumnor, grand in purple velvet, and dropping a curtsey, almost after the fashion of the school-children, she said, - 'My lady, papa is come, and I am going away; and, my lady, I wish you good-night, and thank you for your kindness.Your ladyship's kindness, I mean,' she said, correcting herself as she remembered Miss Browning's particular instructions as to the etiquette to be observed to earls and countesses, and their honourable progeny, as they were given this morning on the road to the Towers.She got out of the saloon somehow; she believed afterwards, on thinking about it, that she had never bidden good-by to Lady Cuxhaven, or Mrs Kirkpatrick, or 'all the rest of them,' as she irreverently styled them in her thoughts.Mr Gibson was in the housekeeper's room, when Molly ran in, rather to the stately Mrs Brown's discomfiture.She threw her arms round her father's neck.'Oh, papa, papa, papa! I am so glad you have come;' and then she burst out crying, stroking his face almost hysterically as if to make sure he was there.'Why, what a noodle you are, Molly! Did you think I was going to give up my little girl to live at the Towers all the rest of her life? You make as much work about my coming for you, as if you thought I had.Make haste now, and get on your bonnet.Mrs Brown, may I ask you for a shawl, or a plaid, or a wrap of some kind to pin about her for a petticoat?' He did not mention that he had come home from a long round not half an hour before, a round from which he had returned dinnerless and hungry;but, on finding that Molly had not returned from the Towers, he had ridden his tired horse round by Miss Brownings', and found them in self-reproachful, helpless dismay.He would not wait to listen to their tearful apologies;he galloped home, had a fresh horse and Molly's pony saddled, and though Berry called after him with a riding-skirt for the child, when he was not ten yards from his own stable-door, he had refused to turn back for it, but gone off, as Dick the stableman said, 'muttering to himself awful.' Mrs Brown had her bottle of wine out, and her plate of cake, before Molly came back from her long expedition to Mrs Kirkpatrick's room, 'pretty nigh on to a quarter of a mile off,' as the housekeeper informed the impatient father, as he waited for his child to come down arrayed in her morning's finery with the gloss of newness worn off.Mr Gibson was a favourite in all the Towers' household, as family doctors generally are; bringing hopes of relief at times of anxiety and distress; and Mrs Brown, who was subject to gout, especially delighted in petting him whenever he would allow her.
She even went out into the stable-yard to pin Molly up in the shawl, as she sate upon the rough-coated pony, and hazarded the somewhat safe conjecture, - 'I dare say she'll be happier at home, Mr Gibson,' as they rode away.Once out into the park Molly struck her pony, and urged him on as hard as he would go, Mr Gibson called out at last, - 'Molly! we're coming to the rabbit-holes; it's not safe to go at such a pace.Stop.' And as she drew rein he rode up alongside of her.'We're getting into the shadow of the trees, and it's not safe riding fast here.' 'Oh! papa, I never was so glad in all my life.I felt like a lighted candle when they're putting the extinguisher on it.' 'Did you? How d'ye know what the candle feels?' 'Oh, I don't know, but I did.' And again, after a pause, she said, - 'Oh, I am so glad to be here! It is so pleasant riding here in the open free, fresh air, crushing out such a good smell from the dewy grass.Papa! are you there? I can't see you.' He rode close up alongside of her: he was not sure but what she might be afraid of riding in the dark shadows, so he laid his hand upon hers.'Oh! I am so glad to feel you,' squeezing his hand hard.'Papa, I should like to get a chain like Ponto's,' just as long as your longest round, and then I could fasten us two to each end of it, and when I wanted you I could pull, and if you did not want to come, you could pull back again;but I should know you knew I wanted you, and we could never lose each other.' 'I'm rather lost in that plan of yours; the details, as you state them, are a little puzzling; but if I make them out rightly, I am to go about the country, like the donkeys on the common, with a clog fastened to my hind leg.' 'I don't mind your calling me a clog, if only we were fastened together.' 'But I do mind your calling me a donkey,' he replied.'I never did.At least I did not mean to.But it is such a comfort to know that I may be as rude as I like.' 'Is that what you've learnt from the grand company you've been keeping to-day? I expected to find you so polite and ceremonious, that I read a few chapters of Sir Charles Grandison , in order to bring myself up to concert pitch.' 'Oh, I do hope I shall never be a lord or a lady.' 'Well, to comfort you, I'll tell you this.I am sure you'll never be a lord; and I think the chances are a thousand to one against your ever being the other, in the sense in which you mean.' 'I should lose myself every time I had to fetch my bonnet, or else get tired of long passages and great staircases long before I could go out walking.' 'But you'd have your lady's-maid, you know.' 'Do you know, papa, I think lady's-maids are worse than ladies.I should not mind being a housekeeper so much.' 'No! the jam-cupboards and dessert would lie very conveniently to one's hand,' replied her father, meditatively.'But Mrs Brown tells me that the thought of the dinners often keeps her from sleeping; there's that anxiety to be taken into consideration.Still, in every condition of life there are heavy cares and responsibilities.' 'Well! I suppose so,' said Molly, gravely.'I know Betty says I wear her life out with the green stains I get in my frocks from sitting in the cherry-tree.' 'And Miss Browning said she had fretted herself into a headache with thinking how they had left you behind.I am afraid you'll be as bad as a bill of fare to them to-night.How did it all happen, goosey?' 'Oh, I went by myself to see the gardens; they are so beautiful! and Ilost myself, and sate down to rest under a great tree; and Lady Cuxhaven and that Mrs Kirkpatrick came; and Mrs Kirkpatrick brought me some lunch, and then put me to sleep on her bed, - and I thought she would waken me in time, and she did not; and so they'd all gone away; and when they planned for me to stop till to-morrow, I didn't like saying how very, very much I wanted to go home, - but I kept thinking how you would wonder where Iwas.' 'Then it was rather a dismal day of pleasure, goosey, eh?' 'Not in the morning.I shall never forget the morning in that garden.But I was never so unhappy in all my life, as I have been all this long afternoon.' Mr Gibson thought it his duty to ride round by the Towers, and pay a visit of apology and thanks to the family, before they left for London.He found them all on the wing, and no one was sufficiently at liberty to listen to his grateful civilities but Mrs Kirkpatrick, who, although she was to accompany Lady Cuxhaven, and pay a visit to her former pupil, made leisure enough to receive Mr Gibson, on behalf of the family; and assured him of her faithful remembrance of his great professional attention to her in former days in the most winning manner.