At ten o'clock on the eventful Thursday the Towers' carriage began
its work. Molly was ready long before it made its first appearance,
although it had been settled that she and the Miss Brownings were not
to go until the last, or fourth, time of its coming. Her face had
been soaped, scrubbed, and shone brilliantly clean; her frills, her
frock, her ribbons were all snow-white. She had on a black mode cloak
that had been her mother's; it was trimmed round with rich lace, and
looked quaint and old-fashioned on the child. For the first time in
her life she wore kid gloves; hitherto she had only had cotton ones.
Her gloves were far too large for the little dimpled fingers, but as
Betty had told her they were to last her for years, it was all very
well. She trembled many a time, and almost turned faint once with the
long expectation of the morning. Betty might say what she liked about
a watched pot never boiling; Molly never ceased to watch the approach
through the winding street, and after two hours the carriage came
for her at last. She had to sit very forward to avoid crushing the
Miss Brownings' new dresses; and yet not too forward, for fear of
incommoding fat Mrs. Goodenough and her niece, who occupied the
front seat of the carriage; so that altogether the fact of sitting
down at all was rather doubtful, and to add to her discomfort, Molly
felt herself to be very conspicuously placed in the centre of the
carriage, a mark for all the observation of Hollingford. It was far
too much of a gala day for the work of the little town to go forward
with its usual regularity. Maid-servants gazed out of upper windows;
shopkeepers' wives stood on the door-steps; cottagers ran out, with
babies in their arms; and little children, too young to know how
to behave respectfully at the sight of an earl's carriage, huzzaed
merrily as it bowled along. The woman at the lodge held the gate
open, and dropped a low curtsey to the liveries. And now they were
in the Park; and now they were in sight of the Towers, and silence
fell upon the carriage-full of ladies, only broken by one faint
remark from Mrs. Goodenough's niece, a stranger to the town, as they
drew up before the double semicircle flight of steps which led to the
door of the mansion.
"They call that a perron, I believe, don't they?" she asked. But
the only answer she obtained was a simultaneous "hush." It was very
awful, as Molly thought, and she half wished herself at home again.
But she lost all consciousness of herself by-and-by when the party
strolled out into the beautiful grounds, the like of which she
had never even imagined. Green velvet lawns, bathed in sunshine,
stretched away on every side into the finely wooded park; if there
were divisions and ha-has between the soft sunny sweeps of grass, and
the dark gloom of the forest-trees beyond, Molly did not see them;
and the melting away of exquisite cultivation into the wilderness
had an inexplicable charm to her. Near the house there were walls
and fences; but they were covered with climbing roses, and rare
honeysuckles and other creepers just bursting into bloom. There were
flower-beds, too, scarlet, crimson, blue, orange; masses of blossom
lying on the greensward. Molly held Miss Browning's hand very tight
as they loitered about in company with several other ladies, and
marshalled by a daughter of the Towers, who seemed half amused at the
voluble admiration showered down upon every possible thing and place.
Molly said nothing, as became her age and position, but every now and
then she relieved her full heart by drawing a deep breath, almost
like a sigh. Presently they came to the long glittering range of
greenhouses and hothouses, and an attendant gardener was there to
admit the party. Molly did not care for this half so much as for
the flowers in the open air; but Lady Agnes had a more scientific
taste, she expatiated on the rarity of this plant, and the mode of
cultivation required by that, till Molly began to feel very tired,
and then very faint. She was too shy to speak for some time; but at
length, afraid of making a greater sensation if she began to cry, or
if she fell against the stands of precious flowers, she caught at
Miss Browning's hand, and gasped out--