"If there is one thing I dislike," said Cynthia to Mr. Gibson, after
he had pronounced tonics to be the cure for her present state, "it is
the way doctors have of giving tablespoonfuls of nauseous mixtures as
a certain remedy for sorrows and cares." She laughed up in his face
as she spoke; she had always a pretty word and smile for him, even in
the midst of her loss of spirits.
"Come! you acknowledge you have 'sorrows' by that speech: we'll make
a bargain: if you'll tell me your sorrows and cares, I'll try and
find some other remedy for them than giving you what you are pleased
to term my nauseous mixtures."
"No," said Cynthia, colouring; "I never said I had sorrows and cares;
I spoke generally. What should I have a sorrow about?--you and Molly
are only too kind to me," her eyes filling with tears.
"Well, well, we'll not talk of such gloomy things, and you shall have
some sweet emulsion to disguise the taste of the bitters I shall be
obliged to fall back upon."
"Please, don't. If you but knew how I dislike emulsions and
disguises! I do want bitters--and if I sometimes--if I'm obliged
to--if I'm not truthful myself, I do like truth in others--at least,
sometimes." She ended her sentence with another smile, but it was
rather faint and watery.
Now the first person out of the house to notice Cynthia's change of
look and manner was Roger Hamley--and yet he did not see her until,
under the influence of the nauseous mixture, she was beginning to
recover. But his eyes were scarcely off her during the first five
minutes he was in the room. All the time he was trying to talk
to Mrs. Gibson in reply to her civil platitudes, he was studying
Cynthia; and at the first convenient pause he came and stood before
Molly, so as to interpose his person between her and the rest of the
room; for some visitors had come in subsequent to his entrance.
"Molly, how ill your sister is looking! What is it? Has she had
advice? You must forgive me, but so often those who live together in
the same house don't observe the first approaches of illness."
Now Molly's love for Cynthia was fast and unwavering, but if anything
tried it, it was the habit Roger had fallen into of always calling
Cynthia Molly's sister in speaking to the latter. From any one else
it would have been a matter of indifference to her, and hardly to be
noticed; it vexed both ear and heart when Roger used the expression;
and there was a curtness of manner as well as of words in her reply.