"What's the matter?" said she quickly, seeing that something was wrong.
"Why, Molly has been doing something which has set that impertinent Miss Browning off into lecturing me on trying to do my duty! If your poor father had but lived, Cynthia, I should never have been spoken to as I have been. 'A stepmother trying to do her duty,' indeed! That was Miss Browning's expression."
Any allusion to her father took from Cynthia all desire of irony. She came forward, and again asked Molly what was the matter.
Molly, herself ruffled, made answer,—
"Miss Browning seemed to think I was likely to marry some one whose character was objectionable—"
"You, Molly?" said Cynthia.
"Yes—she once before spoke to me,—I suspect she has got some notion about Mr. Preston in her head—"
Cynthia sate down quite suddenly. Molly went on: "And she spoke as if mamma did not look enough after me,—I think she was rather provoking—"
"Not rather, but very—very impertinent," said Mrs. Gibson, a little soothed by Molly's recognition of her grievance.
"What could have put it into her head?" said Cynthia, very quietly, taking up her sewing as she spoke.