To their surprise, Molly came in, trying hard to look as usual. She had bathed her eyes, and arranged her hair; and was making a great struggle to keep from crying, and to bring her voice into order. She was unwilling to distress Mrs. Hamley by the sight of pain and suffering. She did not know that she was following Roger's injunction to think more of others than of herself—but so she was. Mrs. Hamley was not sure if it was wise in her to begin on the piece of news she had just heard from her son; but she was too full of it herself to talk of anything else. "So I hear your father is going to be married, my dear? May I ask whom it is to?"
"Mrs. Kirkpatrick. I think she was governess a long time ago at the Countess of Cumnor's. She stays with them a great deal, and they call her Clare, and I believe they are very fond of her." Molly tried to speak of her future stepmother in the most favourable manner she knew how.
"I think I've heard of her. Then she's not very young? That's as it should be. A widow too. Has she any family?"
"One girl, I believe. But I know so little about her!"
Molly was very near crying again.
"Never mind, my dear. That will all come in good time. Roger, you've hardly eaten anything; where are you going?"
"To fetch my dredging-net. It's full of things I don't want to lose. Besides, I never eat much, as a general thing." The truth was partly told, not all. He thought he had better leave the other two alone. His mother had such sweet power of sympathy, that she would draw the sting out of the girl's heart when she had her alone. As soon as he was gone, Molly lifted up her poor swelled eyes, and, looking at Mrs. Hamley, she said,—"He was so good to me. I mean to try and remember all he said."
"I'm glad to hear it, love; very glad. From what he told me, I was afraid he had been giving you a little lecture. He has a good heart, but he isn't so tender in his manner as Osborne. Roger is a little rough sometimes."
"Then I like roughness. It did me good. It made me feel how badly—oh, Mrs. Hamley, I did behave so badly to papa this morning!"
She rose up and threw herself into Mrs. Hamley's arms, and sobbed upon her breast. Her sorrow was not now for the fact that her father was going to be married again, but for her own ill-behaviour.