"To think of Molly, as I have held in long-clothes, coming to have a
lover! Well, to be sure! Sister Phoebe--" (she was just coming into
the room), "here's a piece of news! Molly Gibson has got a lover!
One may almost say she's had an offer! Mr. Gibson, may not one?--and
she's but sixteen!"
"Seventeen, sister," said Miss Phoebe, who piqued herself on
knowing all about dear Mr. Gibson's domestic affairs. "Seventeen, the
22nd of last June."
"Well, have it your own way. Seventeen, if you like to call her so!"
said Miss Browning, impatiently. "The fact is still the same--she's
got a lover; and it seems to me she was in long-clothes only
yesterday."
"I'm sure I hope her course of true love will run smooth," said Miss
Phoebe.
Now Mr. Gibson came in; for his story was not half told, and he
did not want them to run away too far with the idea of Molly's
love-affair.
"Molly knows nothing about it. I haven't even named it to any one
but you two, and to one other friend. I trounced Coxe well, and did
my best to keep his attachment--as he calls it--in bounds. But I
was sadly puzzled what to do about Molly. Miss Eyre was away, and I
couldn't leave them in the house together without any older woman."
"Oh, Mr. Gibson! why did you not send her to us?" broke in Miss
Browning. "We would have done anything in our power for you; for your
sake, as well as her poor dear mother's."
"Thank you. I know you would, but it wouldn't have done to have had
her in Hollingford, just at the time of Coxe's effervescence. He's
better now. His appetite has come back with double force, after the
fasting he thought it right to exhibit. He had three helpings of
black-currant dumpling yesterday."
"I am sure you are most liberal, Mr. Gibson. Three helpings! And, I
daresay, butcher's meat in proportion?"
"Oh! I only named it because, with such very young men, it's
generally see-saw between appetite and love, and I thought the third
helping a very good sign. But still, you know, what has happened
once, may happen again."
"I don't know. Phoebe had an offer of marriage once--" said Miss
Browning.
"Hush! sister. It might hurt his feelings to have it spoken about."
"Nonsense, child! It's five-and-twenty years ago; and his eldest
daughter is married herself."
"I own he has not been constant," pleaded Miss Phoebe, in
her tender, piping voice. "All men are not--like you, Mr.
Gibson--faithful to the memory of their first-love."
Mr. Gibson winced. Jeannie was his first love; but her name had never
been breathed in Hollingford. His wife--good, pretty, sensible, and
beloved as she had been--was not his second; no, nor his third love.
And now he was come to make a confidence about his second marriage.