Come here, and sit on this stool by me.What is your name? or what do they call you? - as North-country people would express it.' 'Molly Gibson.My real name is Mary.' 'Molly is a nice, soft-sounding name.People in the last century weren't afraid of homely names; now we are all so smart and fine: no more "Lady Bettys" now.I almost wonder they haven't re-christened all the worsted and knitting-cotton that bears her name.Fancy Lady Constantia's cotton, or Lady Anna-Maria's worsted.' 'I didn't know there was a Lady Betty's cotton,' said Molly.'That proves you don't do fancy-work! You'll find Clare will set you to it, though.She used to set me at piece after piece: knights kneeling to ladies; impossible flowers.But I must do her the justice to add that when I got tired of them she finished them herself.I wonder how you'll get on together?' 'So do I!' sighed out Molly, under her breath.'I used to think I managed her, till one day an uncomfortable suspicion arose that all the time she had been managing me.Still it's easy work to let oneself be managed; at any rate till one wakens up to the consciousness of the process, and then it may become amusing, if one takes it in that light.' 'I should hate to be managed,' said Molly, indignantly.'I'll try and do what she wishes for papa's sake, if she'll only tell me outright; but Ishould dislike to be trapped into anything.' 'Now I,' said Lady Harriet, 'am too lazy to avoid traps; and I rather like to remark the cleverness with which they're set.But then of course I know that, if I choose to exert myself, I can break through the withes of green flax with which they try to bind me.Now, perhaps, you won't be able.' 'I don't quite understand what you mean,' said Molly.'Oh, well - never mind; I daresay it's as well for you that you shouldn't.
The moral of all I have been saying is, "Be a good girl, and suffer yourself to be led, and you'll find your new stepmother the sweetest creature imaginable."You'll get on capitally with her, I make no doubt.How you'll get on with her daughter is another affair; but I daresay very well.Now we'll ring for tea; for I suppose that heavy breakfast is to stand for our lunch.' Mr Preston came into the room just at this time, and Molly was a little surprised at Lady Harriet's cool manner of dismissing him, remembering as she did how Mr Preston had implied his intimacy with her ladyship the evening before at dinner-time.'I cannot bear that sort of person,' said Lady Harriet, almost before he was out of hearing; 'giving himself airs of gallantry towards one to whom his simple respect is all his duty.I can talk to one of my father's labourers with pleasure, while with a man like that underbred fop I am all over thorns and nettles.What is it the Irish call that style of creature? They've got some capital word for it, I know.What is it?' 'I don't know - I never heard it,' said Molly, a little ashamed of her ignorance.'Oh! that shows you've never read Miss Edgeworth's tales; - now, have you?
If you had, you'd have recollected that there was such a word, even if you didn't remember what it was.If you've never read those stories, they would be just the thing to beguile your solitude - vastly improving and moral, and yet quite sufficiently interesting.I'll lend them to you while you're all alone.' 'I'm not alone.I'm not at home, but on a visit to the Miss Brownings.' 'Then I'll bring them to you.I know the Miss Brownings; they used to come regularly on the school-day to the Towers.Pecksy and Flapsy I used to call them.I like the Miss Brownings; one gets enough of respect from them at any rate; and I've always wanted to see the kind of ménage of such people.I'll bring you a whole pile of Miss Edgeworth's stories, my dear.' Molly sate quite silent for a minute or two; then she mustered up courage to speak out what was in her mind.'Your ladyship' (the title was the firstfruits of the lesson, as Molly took it, on paying due respect) - 'your ladyship keeps speaking of the sort of - the class of people to which I belong as if it was a kind of strange animal you were talking about; yet you talk so openly to me that -- ' 'Well, go on - I like to hear you.' Still silence.'You think me in your heart a little impertinent - now, don't you?' said Lady Harriet, almost kindly.Molly held her peace for two or three moments; then she lifted her beautiful, honest eyes to Lady Harriet's face, and said, - 'Yes! - a little.But I think you a great many other things.' 'We'll leave the "other things" for the present.Don't you see, little one, I talked after my kind, just as you talk after your kind.It's only on the surface with both of us.Why, I daresay some of your good Hollingford ladies talk of the poor people in a manner which they would consider as impertinent in their turn, if they could hear it.But I ought to be more considerate when I remember how often my blood has boiled at the modes of speech and behaviour of one of my aunts, mamma's sister, Lady -- No!