"Is that you, dear? Don't go. I like to know that you are there."
She shut her eyes again, and remained quite quiet for a few minutes longer. Then she started up into a sitting posture, pushed her hair away from her forehead and burning eyes, and gazed intently at Molly.
"Do you know what I've been thinking, dear?" said she. "I think I've been long enough here, and that I had better go out as a governess."
"Cynthia! what do you mean?" asked Molly, aghast. "You've been asleep—you've been dreaming. You're over-tired," continued she, sitting down on the bed, and taking Cynthia's passive hand, and stroking it softly—a mode of caressing that had come down to her from her mother—whether as an hereditary instinct, or as a lingering remembrance of the tender ways of the dead woman, Mr. Gibson often wondered within himself when he observed it.
"Oh, how good you are, Molly! I wonder, if I had been brought up like you, whether I should have been as good. But I've been tossed about so."
"Then, don't go and be tossed about any more," said Molly, softly.
"Oh, dear! I had better go. But, you see, no one ever loved me like you, and, I think, your father—doesn't he, Molly? And it's hard to be driven out."
"Cynthia, I am sure you're not well, or else you're not half awake."
Cynthia sate with her arms encircling her knees, and looking at vacancy.
"Well!" said she, at last, heaving a great sigh; but, then, smiling as she caught Molly's anxious face, "I suppose there's no escaping one's doom; and anywhere else I should be much more forlorn and unprotected."