Molly looked forward to her two days alone with Mrs. Gibson with very
different anticipations from those with which she had welcomed the
similar intercourse with her father. In the first place, there was no
accompanying the travellers to the inn from which the coach started;
leave-taking in the market-place was quite out of the bounds of Mrs.
Gibson's sense of propriety. Besides this, it was a gloomy, rainy
evening, and candles had to be brought in at an unusually early hour.
There would be no break for six hours--no music, no reading; but
the two ladies would sit at their worsted work, pattering away at
small-talk, with not even the usual break of dinner; for, to suit
the requirements of those who were leaving, they had already dined
early. But Mrs. Gibson really meant to make Molly happy, and tried to
be an agreeable companion, only Molly was not well, and was uneasy
about many apprehended cares and troubles--and at such hours of
indisposition as she was then passing through, apprehensions take
the shape of certainties, lying await in our paths. Molly would have
given a good deal to have shaken off all these feelings, unusual
enough to her; but the very house and furniture, and rain-blurred
outer landscape, seemed steeped with unpleasant associations, most of
them dating from the last few days.
"You and I must go on the next journey, I think, my dear," said Mrs.
Gibson, almost chiming in with Molly's wish that she could get away
from Hollingford into some new air and life, for a week or two. "We
have been stay-at-homes for a long time, and variety of scene is so
desirable for the young! But I think the travellers will be wishing
themselves at home by this nice bright fireside. 'There's no place
like home,' as the poet says. 'Mid pleasures and palaces although I
may roam,' it begins, and it's both very pretty and very true. It's a
great blessing to have such a dear little home as this, is not it,
Molly?"
"Yes," said Molly, rather drearily, having something of the "toujours
perdrix" feeling at the moment. If she could but have gone away with
her father, just for two days, how pleasant it would have been.
"To be sure, love, it would be very nice for you and me to go a
little journey all by ourselves. You and I. No one else. If it
were not such miserable weather we would have gone off on a little
impromptu tour. I've been longing for something of the kind for some
weeks; but we live such a restricted kind of life here! I declare
sometimes I get quite sick of the very sight of the chairs and tables
that I know so well. And one misses the others too! It seems so flat
and deserted without them!"