"All right," says Molly reassuringly. "I'll see that she goes."
The girl looks after him as he goes swinging down the road.
"He's a nice fellow," she says to herself. "I shouldn't at all mind having him for a brother. I wonder, now, whether Honor likes him as much as he does her. Anyone can see with half an eye that it is not Daisy alone that he comes here to see. He's dreadfully jealous, though. He makes himself quite ridiculous over that young Hildyard, just because he stares at Honor so in church. Such a child, too, as Ernest is; and I don't believe Honor has ever spoken to him more than two or three times at the outside. It really is absurd. I can't help teasing Dr. John about it. All right, coming!" she cries, in answer to a summons to tea from Honor; and gathering up her work, she goes slowly back to the house.
There is perhaps more alteration in Molly's appearance than in any of the others in these two past years. She is now turned seventeen, and tall for her age. She carries herself gracefully, and her slight though rounded figure is shown to advantage to-day in the light, simply-made dress which she is wearing on account of the heat.
Molly's hair has been turned up for some time now, ever since she took to teaching, in fact. "You cannot expect me to command respect from my pupils with my hair hanging down my back," she had said when the others had been inclined to remonstrate. It is all gathered up, therefore, in a pretty top-knot of bright, sunny, chestnut curls, which, notwithstanding the number of pins she uses, do their best to escape and tumble, as of old, about her forehead, ears, and neck. She is not, perhaps, what most people would call strictly pretty; but she is very charming, and her deep blue eyes, with their long lashes, are really beautiful. Her complexion though brilliant is at the same time delicate, and one of her greatest charms is in the ever-varying expression of her face. Her nose is not strictly aquiline, but her pretty sensitive mouth and firm little chin make up for its deficiencies; and last, but not least, there is the pretty way in which her hair grows about her forehead and temples.
Altogether Mrs. Merivale has reason to feel proud of her three now grown-up daughters, and she often turns away with a heavy sigh when she thinks with what fond pride their dead father would look upon them could he see them now.
CHAPTER XXX.
HUGH'S PARTING GIFT.
A few afternoons later Honor and Molly are both seated at work under the weeping ash, but the weather being hotter than ever they have retired to the very back of the natural arbour which the drooping boughs form. Of course they have the advantage of being able to see all that goes on outside, while quite invisible themselves.
They are talking on the usual inexhaustible subject of the present time, namely, their future brother-in-law, Mr. Lancelot Ferrars, who has been down, and having had a mysterious talk with Mrs. Merivale in the drawing-room, has taken early dinner (not cold mutton) with them in quite a brotherly sort of fashion. After dinner he had been introduced to the studio, as being a place likely to interest him. Then after a stroll round the garden, and an early cup of tea insisted upon by Molly, he had gone off to the station to catch the next train back to town.