"Did you observe her constant trick of heaving her shoulders and
clasping her hands together before she took a high note?"--which was
so said as to imply that Mrs. Gibson herself had noticed this trick.
Molly, who had a pretty good idea by this time of how her stepmother
had passed the last year of her life, listened with no small
bewilderment to this conversation; but at length decided that she
must misunderstand what they were saying, as she could not gather up
the missing links for the necessity of replying to Roger's questions
and remarks. Osborne was not the same Osborne he was when with his
mother at the Hall.
Roger saw Molly glancing at his brother.
"You think my brother looking ill?" said he, lowering his voice.
"No--not exactly."
"He is not well. Both my father and I are anxious about him.
That run on the Continent did him harm, instead of good; and his
disappointment at his examination has told upon him, I'm afraid."
"I was not thinking he looked ill; only changed somehow."
"He says he must go back to Cambridge soon. Possibly it may do him
good; and I shall be off next week. This is a farewell visit to you,
as well as one of congratulation to Mrs. Gibson."
"Your mother will feel your both going away, won't she? But of course
young men will always have to live away from home."
"Yes," he replied. "Still she feels it a good deal; and I'm not
satisfied about her health either. You will go out and see her
sometimes, will you? she is very fond of you."
"If I may," said Molly, unconsciously glancing at her stepmother. She
had an uncomfortable instinct that, in spite of Mrs. Gibson's own
perpetual flow of words, she could, and did, hear everything that
fell from Molly's lips.
"Do you want any more books?" said he. "If you do, make a list out,
and send it to my mother before I leave, next Tuesday. After I am
gone, there will be no one to go into the library and pick them out."
As soon as they had left, Mrs. Gibson began her usual comments on the
departed visitors.
"I do like that Osborne Hamley! What a nice fellow he is! Somehow,
I always do like eldest sons. He will have the estate, won't he? I
shall ask your dear papa to encourage him to come about the house. He
will be a very good, very pleasant acquaintance for you and Cynthia.
The other is but a loutish young fellow, to my mind; there is no
aristocratic bearing about him. I suppose he takes after his mother,
who is but a parvenue, I've heard them say at the Towers."