"And what did you say?" asked Molly, breathless.
"I did not answer it at all until another letter came, entreating for
a reply. By that time mamma had come home, and the old daily pressure
and plaint of poverty had come on. Mary Donaldson wrote to me often,
singing the praises of Mr. Preston as enthusiastically as if she had
been bribed to do it. I had seen him a very popular man in their set,
and I liked him well enough, and felt grateful to him. So I wrote and
gave him my promise to marry him when I was twenty, but it was to be
a secret till then. And I tried to forget I had ever borrowed money
of him, but somehow as soon as I felt pledged to him I began to hate
him. I couldn't endure his eagerness of greeting if ever he found me
alone; and mamma began to suspect, I think. I cannot tell you all the
ins and outs; in fact, I didn't understand them at the time, and I
don't remember clearly how it all happened now. But I know that Lady
Cuxhaven sent mamma some money to be applied to my education, as
she called it; and mamma seemed very much put out and in very low
spirits, and she and I didn't get on at all together. So, of course,
I never ventured to name the hateful twenty pounds to her, but went
on trying to think that if I was to marry Mr. Preston, it need never
be paid--very mean and wicked, I daresay; but oh, Molly, I've been
punished for it, for how I abhor that man."
"But why? When did you begin to dislike him? You seem to have taken
it very passively all this time."
"I don't know. It was growing upon me before I went to that school
at Boulogne. He made me feel as if I was in his power; and by too
often reminding me of my engagement to him, he made me critical of
his words and ways. There was an insolence in his manner to mamma,
too. Ah! you're thinking that I'm not too respectful a daughter--and
perhaps not; but I couldn't bear his covert sneers at her faults, and
I hated his way of showing what he called his 'love' for me. Then,
after I had been a _semestre_ at Mdme. Lefevre's, a new English girl
came--a cousin of his, who knew but little of me. Now, Molly, you
must forget as soon as I've told you what I'm going to say; and she
used to talk so much and perpetually about her cousin Robert--he was
the great man of the family, evidently--and how he was so handsome,
and every lady of the land in love with him,--a lady of title into
the bargain."