But though he was not there, his brother Roger was. Molly saw him in
a minute when she entered the little drawing-room; but Cynthia did
not.
"And see, my dears," said Miss Phoebe Browning, turning them round
to the side where Roger stood waiting for his turn of speaking
to Molly, "we've got a gentleman for you after all! Wasn't it
fortunate?--just as sister said that you might find it dull--you,
Cynthia, she meant, because you know you come from France--then, just
as if he had been sent from heaven, Mr. Roger came in to call; and I
won't say we laid violent hands on him, because he was too good for
that; but really we should have been near it, if he had not stayed of
his own accord."
The moment Roger had done his cordial greeting to Molly, he asked her
to introduce him to Cynthia.
"I want to know her--your new sister," he added, with the kind smile
Molly remembered so well since the very first day she had seen it
directed towards her, as she sate crying under the weeping ash.
Cynthia was standing a little behind Molly when Roger asked for this
introduction. She was generally dressed with careless grace. Molly,
who was delicate neatness itself, used sometimes to wonder how
Cynthia's tumbled gowns, tossed away so untidily, had the art of
looking so well, and falling in such graceful folds. For instance,
the pale lilac muslin gown she wore this evening had been worn many
times before, and had looked unfit to wear again till Cynthia put
it on. Then the limpness became softness, and the very creases took
the lines of beauty. Molly, in a daintily clean pink muslin, did not
look half so elegantly dressed as Cynthia. The grave eyes that the
latter raised when she had to be presented to Roger had a sort of
child-like innocence and wonder about them, which did not quite
belong to Cynthia's character. She put on her armour of magic that
evening--involuntarily as she always did; but, on the other side, she
could not help trying her power on strangers. Molly had always felt
that she should have a right to a good long talk with Roger when she
next saw him; and that he would tell her, or she should gather from
him all the details she so longed to hear about the Squire--about
the Hall--about Osborne--about himself. He was just as cordial and
friendly as ever with her. If Cynthia had not been there, all would
have gone on as she had anticipated; but of all the victims to
Cynthia's charms he fell most prone and abject. Molly saw it all,
as she was sitting next to Miss Phoebe at the tea-table, acting
right-hand, and passing cake, cream, sugar, with such busy assiduity
that every one besides herself thought that her mind, as well as her
hands, was fully occupied. She tried to talk to the two shy girls,
as in virtue of her two years' seniority she thought herself bound
to do; and the consequence was, she went upstairs with the twain
clinging to her arms, and willing to swear an eternal friendship.
Nothing would satisfy them but that she must sit between them at
vingt-un; and they were so desirous of her advice in the important
point of fixing the price of the counters that she could not ever
have joined in the animated conversation going on between Roger and
Cynthia. Or, rather, it would be more correct to say that Roger was
talking in a most animated manner to Cynthia, whose sweet eyes were
fixed upon his face with a look of great interest in all he was
saying, while it was only now and then she made her low replies.
Molly caught a few words occasionally in intervals of business.