"Well, there's no danger of it, now the money is run out. By the way,
Molly, who's to buy you a bridesmaid's dress?"
"I don't know," said Molly; "I suppose I am to be a bridesmaid; but
no one has spoken to me about my dress."
"Then I shall ask your papa."
"Please, don't. He must have to spend a great deal of money just now.
Besides, I would rather not be at the wedding, if they'll let me stay
away."
"Nonsense, child. Why, all the town would be talking of it. You must
go, and you must be well dressed, for your father's sake."
But Mr. Gibson had thought of Molly's dress, although he had said
nothing about it to her. He had commissioned his future wife to get
her what was requisite; and presently a very smart dressmaker came
over from the county-town to try on a dress, which was both so simple
and so elegant as at once to charm Molly. When it came home all ready
to put on, Molly had a private dressing-up for the Miss Brownings'
benefit; and she was almost startled when she looked into the glass,
and saw the improvement in her appearance. "I wonder if I'm pretty,"
thought she. "I almost think I am--in this kind of dress I mean, of
course. Betty would say, 'Fine feathers make fine birds.'"
When she went downstairs in her bridal attire, and with shy blushes
presented herself for inspection, she was greeted with a burst of
admiration.
"Well, upon my word! I shouldn't have known you." ("Fine feathers,"
thought Molly, and checked her rising vanity.)
"You are really beautiful--isn't she, sister?" said Miss Phoebe.
"Why, my dear, if you were always dressed, you would be prettier than
your dear mamma, whom we always reckoned so very personable."
"You're not a bit like her. You favour your father, and white always
sets off a brown complexion."
"But isn't she beautiful?" persevered Miss Phoebe.
"Well! and if she is, Providence made her, and not she herself.
Besides, the dressmaker must go shares. What a fine India muslin it
is! it'll have cost a pretty penny!"
Mr. Gibson and Molly drove over to Ashcombe, the night before the
wedding, in the one yellow post-chaise that Hollingford possessed.
They were to be Mr. Preston's, or, rather, my lord's guests at the
Manor-house. The Manor-house came up to its name, and delighted Molly
at first sight. It was built of stone, had many gables and mullioned
windows, and was covered over with Virginian creeper and late-blowing
roses. Molly did not know Mr. Preston, who stood in the doorway
to greet her father. She took standing with him as a young lady
at once, and it was the first time she had met with the kind of
behaviour--half complimentary, half flirting--which some men think
it necessary to assume with every woman under five-and-twenty. Mr.
Preston was very handsome, and knew it. He was a fair man, with
light-brown hair and whiskers; grey, roving, well-shaped eyes, with
lashes darker than his hair; and a figure rendered easy and supple by
the athletic exercises in which his excellence was famous, and which
had procured him admission into much higher society than he was
otherwise entitled to enter. He was a capital cricketer; was so good
a shot, that any house desirous of reputation for its bags on the
12th or the 1st, was glad to have him for a guest. He taught young
ladies to play billiards on a wet day, or went in for the game in
serious earnest when required. He knew half the private theatrical
plays off by heart, and was invaluable in arranging impromptu
charades and tableaux. He had his own private reasons for wishing
to get up a flirtation with Molly just at this time; he had amused
himself so much with the widow when she first came to Ashcombe, that
he fancied that the sight of him, standing by her less polished, less
handsome, middle-aged husband, might be too much of a contrast to be
agreeable. Besides, he had really a strong passion for some one else;
some one who would be absent; and that passion it was necessary for
him to conceal. So that, altogether, he had resolved, even had "the
little Gibson-girl" (as he called her) been less attractive than she
was, to devote himself to her for the next sixteen hours.