"Not if they loved each other, and their whole happiness depended upon their marrying each other," put in Mrs. Hamley, mildly.
"Pooh! away with love! Nay, my dear, we loved each other so dearly we should never have been happy with any one else; but that's a different thing. People aren't like what they were when we were young. All the love nowadays is just silly fancy, and sentimental romance, as far as I can see."
Mr. Gibson thought that he had settled everything about Molly's going to Hamley before he spoke to her about it, which he did not do, until the morning of the day on which Mrs. Hamley expected her. Then he said,—"By the way, Molly! you're to go to Hamley this afternoon; Mrs. Hamley wants you to go to her for a week or two, and it suits me capitally that you should accept her invitation just now."
"Go to Hamley! This afternoon! Papa, you've got some odd reason at the back of your head—some mystery, or something. Please, tell me what it is. Go to Hamley for a week or two! Why, I never was from home before this without you in all my life."
"Perhaps not. I don't think you ever walked before you put your feet to the ground. Everything must have a beginning."
"It has something to do with that letter that was directed to me, but that you took out of my hands before I could even see the writing of the direction." She fixed her grey eyes on her father's face, as if she meant to pluck out his secret.
He only smiled and said,—"You're a witch, goosey!"
"Then it had! But if it was a note from Mrs. Hamley, why might I not see it? I have been wondering if you had some plan in your head ever since that day.—Thursday, wasn't it? You've gone about in a kind of thoughtful, perplexed way, just like a conspirator. Tell me, papa"—coming up to him, and putting on a beseeching manner—"why mightn't I see that note? and why am I to go to Hamley all on a sudden?"
"Don't you like to go? Would you rather not?" If she had said that she did not want to go he would have been rather pleased than otherwise, although it would have put him into a great perplexity; but he was beginning to dread the parting from her even for so short a time. However, she replied directly,—
"I don't know—I daresay I shall like it when I have thought a little more about it. Just now I'm so startled by the suddenness of the affair, I haven't considered whether I shall like it or not. I shan't like going away from you, I know. Why am I to go, papa?"