Instead, Cynthia gave a diversion to the conversation.
"Mamma's paragon gives me an idea of weakness. I can't quite make out whether it's in body or mind. Which is it, Molly?"
"He is not strong, I know; but he's very accomplished and clever. Every one says that,—even papa, who doesn't generally praise young men. That made the puzzle the greater when he did so badly at college."
"Then it's his character that is weak. I'm sure there's weakness somewhere; but he's very agreeable. It must have been very pleasant, staying at the Hall."
"Yes; but it's all over now."
"Oh, nonsense!" said Mrs. Gibson, wakening up from counting the stitches in her pattern. "We shall have the young men coming to dinner pretty often, you'll see. Your father likes them, and I shall always make a point of welcoming his friends. They can't go on mourning for a mother for ever. I expect we shall see a great deal of them; and that the two families will become very intimate. After all, these good Hollingford people are terribly behindhand, and I should say, rather commonplace."
CHAPTER XXI.
THE HALF-SISTERS.
t appeared as if Mrs. Gibson's predictions were likely to be verified; for Osborne Hamley found his way to her drawing-room pretty frequently. To be sure, sometimes prophets can help on the fulfilment of their own prophecies; and Mrs. Gibson was not passive.
Molly was altogether puzzled by his manners and ways. He spoke of occasional absences from the Hall, without exactly saying where he had been. But that was not her idea of the conduct of a married man; who, she imagined, ought to have a house and servants, and pay rent and taxes, and live with his wife. Who this mysterious wife might be faded into insignificance before the wonder of where she was. London, Cambridge, Dover, nay, even France, were mentioned by him as places to which he had been on these different little journeys. These facts came out quite casually, almost as if he was unaware of what he was betraying. Sometimes he dropped out such sentences as these:—"Ah, that would be the day I was crossing! It was stormy indeed! Instead of our being only two hours, we were nearly five." Or, "I met Lord Hollingford at Dover last week, and he said," &c. "The cold now is nothing to what it was in London on Thursday—the thermometer was down at 15°." Perhaps, in the rapid flow of conversation, these small revelations were noticed by no one but Molly; whose interest and curiosity were always hovering over the secret she had become possessed of, in spite of all her self-reproach for allowing her thoughts to dwell on what was still to be kept as a mystery.