"Tell me,—honestly as I know you will if you speak at all,—haven't I done something to vex you since we were so happy at the Towers together?"
His voice was so kind and true,—his manner so winning yet wistful, that Molly would have been thankful to tell him all. She believed that he could have helped her more than any one to understand how she ought to behave rightly; he would have disentangled her fancies,—if only he himself had not lain at the very core and centre of all her perplexity and dismay. How could she tell him of Mrs. Goodenough's words troubling her maiden modesty? How could she ever repeat what his father had said that morning, and assure him that she, no more than he, wished that their old friendliness should be troubled by the thought of a nearer relationship?
"No, you never vexed me in my whole life, Roger," said she, looking straight at him for the first time for many days.
"I believe you, because you say so. I have no right to ask further. Molly, will you give me back one of those flowers, as a pledge of what you have said?"
"Take whichever you like," said she, eagerly offering him the whole nosegay to choose from.
"No; you must choose, and you must give it me."
Just then the Squire came in. Roger would have been glad if Molly had not gone on so eagerly to ransack the bunch for the choicest flower in his father's presence; but she exclaimed:
"Oh, please, Mr. Hamley, do you know which is Roger's favourite flower?"
"No. A rose, I daresay. The carriage is at the door, and, Molly my dear, I don't want to hurry you, but—"
"I know. Here, Roger,—here is a rose!