'MY dear Molly, why didn't you come and dine with us? I said to sister I would come and scold you well.Oh, Mr Osborne Hamley, is that you?' and a look of mistaken intelligence at the tête-?tête she had disturbed came so perceptibly over Miss Phoebe's face that Mollyrus caught Osborne's sympathetic eye, and both smiled at the notion.
'I'm sure I - well! one must sometimes - I see our dinner would have been - ' Then she recovered herself into a connected sentence.'We only just heard of Mrs Gibson's having a fly from the "George," because sister sent our Nancy to pay for a couple of rabbits Tom Ostler had snared (Ihope we shan't be taken up for poachers, Mr Osborne - snaring doesn't require a licence, I believe?), and she heard he was gone off with the fly to the Towers with your dear mamma; for Coxe who drives the fly in general has sprained his ankle.We had just finished dinner, but when Nancy said Tom Ostler would not be back till night I said, "Why, there's that poor dear girl left all alone by herself, and her mother such a friend of ours,"- when she was alive, I mean, But I'm sure I'm glad I'm mistaken.'
Osborne said, - 'I came to speak to Mr Gibson, not knowing he had gone to London, and Miss Gibson kindly gave me some of her lunch.I must go now.'
'Oh dear! I am so sorry,' fluttered out Miss Phoebe, 'I disturbed you;but it was with the best intentions.I always was mal-àpropos from a child.' But Osborne was gone before she had finished her apologies.Before he left, his eyes met Molly's with a strange look of yearning farewell that struck her at the time, and that she remembered strongly afterwards.
'Such a nice suitable thing, and I came in the midst, and spoilt it all.
I am sure you're very kind, my dear, considering - ' t 'Considering what, my dear Miss Phoebe? If you are conjecturing a love affair between Mr Osborne Hamley and me, you never were more mistaken in your life.I think I told you so once before.Please do believe me.'
'Oh, yes! I remember.And somehow sister got it into her head it was Mr Preston, I recollect.'