Wives and Daughters: An Every-Day Story - Page 246/572

"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!"