"What did you say?"
"I gave her the best advice in my power."
"Advice! you ought to have comforted her. Poor little Molly!"
"I think that if advice is good it's the best comfort."
"That depends on what you mean by advice. Hush! here she is."
To their surprise, Molly came in, trying hard to look as usual. She
had bathed her eyes, and arranged her hair; and was making a great
struggle to keep from crying, and to bring her voice into order.
She was unwilling to distress Mrs. Hamley by the sight of pain and
suffering. She did not know that she was following Roger's injunction
to think more of others than of herself--but so she was. Mrs. Hamley
was not sure if it was wise in her to begin on the piece of news she
had just heard from her son; but she was too full of it herself to
talk of anything else. "So I hear your father is going to be married,
my dear? May I ask whom it is to?"
"Mrs. Kirkpatrick. I think she was governess a long time ago at the
Countess of Cumnor's. She stays with them a great deal, and they call
her Clare, and I believe they are very fond of her." Molly tried to
speak of her future stepmother in the most favourable manner she knew
how.
"I think I've heard of her. Then she's not very young? That's as it
should be. A widow too. Has she any family?"
"One girl, I believe. But I know so little about her!"
Molly was very near crying again.
"Never mind, my dear. That will all come in good time. Roger, you've
hardly eaten anything; where are you going?"
"To fetch my dredging-net. It's full of things I don't want to lose.
Besides, I never eat much, as a general thing." The truth was partly
told, not all. He thought he had better leave the other two alone.
His mother had such sweet power of sympathy, that she would draw the
sting out of the girl's heart when she had her alone. As soon as he
was gone, Molly lifted up her poor swelled eyes, and, looking at Mrs.
Hamley, she said,--"He was so good to me. I mean to try and remember
all he said."
"I'm glad to hear it, love; very glad. From what he told me, I was
afraid he had been giving you a little lecture. He has a good heart,
but he isn't so tender in his manner as Osborne. Roger is a little
rough sometimes."
"Then I like roughness. It did me good. It made me feel how
badly--oh, Mrs. Hamley, I did behave so badly to papa this morning!"