"Oh! but that wasn't pretty," said Miss Browning, shaking her head at Molly. "I thought you'd left off those tom-boy ways."
"She wants the refinement which good society gives in several ways," said Mrs. Gibson, returning to the attack on poor Molly. "She's very apt to come upstairs two steps at a time."
"Only two, Molly!" said Cynthia. "Why, to-day I found I could manage four of these broad shallow steps."
"My dear child, what are you saying?"
"Only confessing that I, like Molly, want the refinements which good society gives; therefore, please do let us go to Miss Brownings' this evening. I will pledge myself for Molly that she shan't sit in a cherry-tree; and Molly shall see that I don't go upstairs in an unladylike way. I will go upstairs as meekly as if I were a come-out young lady, and had been to the Easter ball."
So it was agreed that they should go. If Mr. Osborne Hamley had been named as one of the probable visitors, there would have been none of this difficulty about the affair.
But though he was not there, his brother Roger was. Molly saw him in a minute when she entered the little drawing-room; but Cynthia did not.
"And see, my dears," said Miss Phœbe Browning, turning them round to the side where Roger stood waiting for his turn of speaking to Molly, "we've got a gentleman for you after all! Wasn't it fortunate?—just as sister said that you might find it dull—you, Cynthia, she meant, because you know you come from France—then, just as if he had been sent from heaven, Mr. Roger came in to call; and I won't say we laid violent hands on him, because he was too good for that; but really we should have been near it, if he had not stayed of his own accord."
The moment Roger had done his cordial greeting to Molly, he asked her to introduce him to Cynthia.