"Yes! I'm back again. Bullocks, I find, are not in my line. I
only disappointed my father in not being able to appreciate their
merits, and, I'm afraid, I didn't care to learn. And the smell was
insufferable on such a hot day."
"My dear boy, don't make apologies to me; keep them for your father.
I'm only too glad to have you back. Miss Gibson, this tall fellow is
my son Osborne, as I daresay you have guessed. Osborne--Miss Gibson.
Now, what will you have?"
He looked round the table as he sate down. "Nothing here," said he.
"Isn't there some cold game-pie? I'll ring for that."
Molly was trying to reconcile the ideal with the real. The ideal was
agile, yet powerful, with Greek features and an eagle-eye, capable
of enduring long fasting, and indifferent as to what he ate. The
real was almost effeminate in movement, though not in figure; he had
the Greek features, but his blue eyes had a cold, weary expression
in them. He was dainty in eating, and had anything but a Homeric
appetite. However, Molly's hero was not to eat more than Ivanhoe,
when he was Friar Tuck's guest; and, after all, with a little
alteration, she began to think Mr. Osborne Hamley might turn out a
poetical, if not a chivalrous hero. He was extremely attentive to
his mother, which pleased Molly, and, in return, Mrs. Hamley seemed
charmed with him to such a degree that Molly once or twice fancied
that mother and son would have been happier in her absence. Yet,
again, it struck on the shrewd, if simple girl, that Osborne was
mentally squinting at her in the conversation which was directed to
his mother. There were little turns and 'fioriture' of speech which
Molly could not help feeling were graceful antics of language not
common in the simple daily intercourse between mother and son. But
it was flattering rather than otherwise to perceive that a very fine
young man, who was a poet to boot, should think it worth while to
talk on the tight rope for her benefit. And before the afternoon was
ended, without there having been any direct conversation between
Osborne and Molly, she had reinstated him on his throne in her
imagination; indeed, she had almost felt herself disloyal to her dear
Mrs. Hamley when, in the first hour after her introduction, she had
questioned his claims on his mother's idolatry. His beauty came out
more and more, as he became animated in some discussion with her; and
all his attitudes, if a little studied, were graceful in the extreme.
Before Molly left, the squire and Roger returned from Canonbury.