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 have not 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 she had been rejected, she was more glad than she could express, or even think, that she was going home this very morning.Roger came in from his walk while she was in this state of feeling.He saw in an instant that something had distressed Molly; and he longed to have the old friendly right of asking her what it was.But she had effectually kept him at too great a distance during the last few days for him to feel at liberty to speak to her in the old straightforward brotherly way; especially now, when he perceived her efforts to conceal her feelings, and the way in which she drank her tea in feverish haste, and accepted bread only to crumble it about her plate, untouched.It was all that he could do to make talk under these circumstances; but he backed up her efforts as well as he could until Aimée came down, grave and anxious; her boy had not had a good night, and did not seem well; he had fallen into a feverish sleep now, or she could not have left him.Immediately the whole table was in a ferment.The squire pushed away his plate, and could cat no more;Roger was trying to extract a detail or a fact out of Aimée, who began to give way to tears.Molly quickly proposed that the carriage, which had been ordered to take her home at eleven, should come round immediately - she had everything ready packed up, she said, - and bring back her father at once.By leaving directly, she said it was probable they might catch him after he had returned from his morning visits in the town, and before he had set off on his more distant round.Her proposal was agreed to, and she went upstairs to put on her things.She came down all ready into the drawing-room, expecting to find Aimée and the squire there; but during her absence word had been brought to the anxious mother and grandfather that the child had wakened up in a panic, and both had rushed up to their darling.But Roger was in the drawing-room awaiting Molly, with a large bunch of the choicest flowers.'Look, Molly!' said he, as she was on the point of leaving the room again, on finding him there alone.'I gathered these flowers for you before breakfast.'
He came to meet her reluctant advance.'Thank you!' said she.'You are very kind.I am very much obliged to you.' 'Then you must do something for me,' said he, determined not to notice the restraint of her manner, and making the rearrangement of the flowers which she held a sort of link between them, so that she could not follow her impulse, and leave the room.- 'Tell me, - honestly as I know you will if you speak at all, - have not I done something to vex you since we were so happy at the Towers together?' His voice was so kind and true, - his manner so winning yet wistful, that Molly would have been thankful to tell him all; she believed that he could have helped her more than any one to understand how she ought to behave rightly; he would have disentangled her fancies, - if only he himself had not lain at the very core and centre of all her perplexity and dismay.
How could she tell him of Mrs Goodenough's words troubling her maiden modesty?
How could she ever repeat what his father had said that morning, and assure him that she, no more than he, wished that their old friendliness should be troubled by the thought of a nearer relationship? 'No, you never vexed me in my whole life, Roger,' said she, looking straight at him for the first time for many days.'I believe you, because you say so.I have no right to ask further.Molly, will you give me back one of those flowers, as a pledge of what you have said?' 'Take whichever you like,' said she, eagerly offering him the whole nosegay to choose from.'No; you must choose, and you must give it me.' Just then the squire came in.Roger would have been glad if Molly had not gone on so eagerly to ransack the bunch for the choicest flower in his father's presence; but she exclaimed, - 'Oh, please, Mr Hamley, do you know which is Roger's favourite flower?' 'No.A rose, I daresay.The carriage is at the door, and, Molly my dear, I don't want to hurry you, but -- ' 'I know.Here, Roger, - here is a rose! ('And red as a rose was she.') I will find papa as soon as ever I get home.How is the little boy?' 'I'm afraid he's beginning of some kind of a fever.' And the squire took her to the carriage, talking all the way of the little boy; Roger following, and hardly heeding what he was doing in the answer to the question he kept asking himself: 'Too late - or not? Can she ever forget that my first foolish love was given to one so different?' While she, as the carriage rolled away, kept saying to herself, - 'We are friends again.I don't believe he will remember what the dear squire took it into his head to suggest, for many days.It is so pleasant to be on the old terms again; and what lovely flowers!'