"I'll be merciful; don't be so cowardly. In their eyes a lord may
dance like a bear--as some lords not very far from me are--if he
likes, and they'll take it for grace. And you shall begin with Molly
Gibson, your friend the doctor's daughter. She's a good, simple,
intelligent little girl, which you'll think a great deal more of, I
suppose, than of the frivolous fact of her being very pretty. Clare!
will you allow me to introduce my brother to Miss Gibson? he hopes to
engage her for this dance. Lord Hollingford, Miss Gibson!"
Poor Lord Hollingford! there was nothing for it but for him to follow
his sister's very explicit lead, and Molly and he walked off to their
places, each heartily wishing their dance together well over. Lady
Harriet flew off to Mr. Sheepshanks to secure her respectable young
farmer, and Mrs. Gibson remained alone, wishing that Lady Cumnor
would send one of her attendant gentlemen for her. It would be so
much more agreeable to be sitting even at the fag-end of nobility
than here on a bench with everybody; hoping that everybody would see
Molly dancing away with a lord, yet vexed that the chance had so
befallen that Molly instead of Cynthia was the young lady singled
out; wondering if simplicity of dress was now become the highest
fashion, and pondering on the possibility of cleverly inducing
Lady Harriet to introduce Lord Albert Monson to her own beautiful
daughter, Cynthia.
Molly found Lord Hollingford, the wise and learned Lord Hollingford,
strangely stupid in understanding the mystery of "Cross hands and
back again, down the middle and up again." He was constantly getting
hold of the wrong hands, and as constantly stopping when he had
returned to his place, quite unaware that the duties of society and
the laws of the dance required that he should go on capering till
he had arrived at the bottom of the room. He perceived that he had
performed his part very badly, and apologized to Molly when once they
had arrived at that haven of comparative peace; and he expressed his
regret so simply and heartily that she felt at her ease with him at
once, especially when he confided to her his reluctance at having to
dance at all, and his only doing it under his sister's compulsion.
To Molly he was an elderly widower, almost as old as her father,
and by-and-by they got into very pleasant conversation. She learnt
from him that Roger Hamley had just been publishing a paper in some
scientific periodical, which had excited considerable attention,
as it was intended to confute some theory of a great French
physiologist, and Roger's article proved the writer to be possessed
of a most unusual amount of knowledge on the subject. This piece
of news was of great interest to Molly; and, in her questions, she
herself evinced so much intelligence, and a mind so well prepared for
the reception of information, that Lord Hollingford at any rate would
have felt his quest of popularity a very easy affair indeed, if he
might have gone on talking quietly to Molly during the rest of the
evening. When he took her back to her place, he found Mr. Gibson
there, and fell into talk with him, until Lady Harriet once more came
to stir him up to his duties. Before very long, however, he returned
to Mr. Gibson's side, and began telling him of this paper of Roger
Hamley's, of which Mr. Gibson had not yet heard. In the midst
of their conversation, as they stood close by Mrs. Gibson, Lord
Hollingford saw Molly in the distance, and interrupted himself to
say, "What a charming little lady that daughter of yours is! Most
girls of her age are so difficult to talk to; but she is intelligent
and full of interest in all sorts of sensible things; well read,
too--she was up in Le Règne Animal--and very pretty!"