"Well!" said she, when her father stopped speaking.
"Well! what?" asked he, playfully.
"Oh! why, such a number of things. I've been waiting all day to ask
you all about everything. How is he looking?"
"If a young man of twenty-four ever does take to growing taller, I
should say that he was taller. As it is, I suppose it's only that he
looks broader, stronger--more muscular."
"Oh! is he changed?" asked Molly, a little disturbed by this account.
"No, not changed; and yet not the same. He's as brown as a berry for
one thing; caught a little of the negro tinge, and a beard as fine
and sweeping as my bay-mare's tail."
"A beard! But go on, papa. Does he talk as he used to do? I should
know his voice amongst ten thousand."
"I didn't catch any Hottentot twang, if that's what you mean. Nor did
he say, 'Cæsar and Pompey berry much alike, 'specially Pompey,' which
is the only specimen of negro language I can remember just at this
moment."
"And which I never could see the wit of," said Mrs. Gibson, who had
come into the room after the conversation had begun; and did not
understand what it was aiming at. Molly fidgeted; she wanted to go on
with her questions and keep her father to definite and matter-of-fact
answers, and she knew that when his wife chimed into a conversation,
Mr. Gibson was very apt to find out that he must go about some
necessary piece of business.
"Tell me, how are they all getting on together?" It was an inquiry
which she did not make in general before Mrs. Gibson, for Molly and
her father had tacitly agreed to keep silence on what they knew or
had observed, respecting the three who formed the present family at
the Hall.
"Oh!" said Mr. Gibson, "Roger is evidently putting everything to
rights in his firm, quiet way."
"'Things to rights.' Why, what's wrong?" asked Mrs. Gibson quickly.
"The Squire and the French daughter-in-law don't get on well
together, I suppose? I am always so glad Cynthia acted with the
promptitude she did; it would have been very awkward for her to have
been mixed up with all these complications. Poor Roger! to find
himself supplanted by a child when he comes home!"
"You were not in the room, my dear, when I was telling Molly of the
reasons for Roger's return; it was to put his brother's child at once
into his rightful and legal place. So now, when he finds the work
partly done to his hands, he is happy and gratified in proportion."