I shall have no subject in common.Speak of being disappointed, they'll be ten times more disappointed when they find I can neither dance nor talk!' 'I'll be merciful; don't be so cowardly.In their eyes a lord may dance like a bear - as some lords not very far from me are - if he likes, and they'll take it for grace.And you shall begin with Molly Gibson, your friend the doctor's daughter.She's a good, simple, intelligent little girl, which you'll think a great deal more of, I suppose, than of the frivolous fact of her being very pretty, Clare! will you allow me to introduce my brother to Miss Gibson? he hopes to engage her for this dance.Lord Hollingford, Miss Gibson!' Poor Lord Hollingford! there was nothing for it but for him to follow his sister's very explicit lead, and Molly and he walked off to their places, each heartily wishing their dance together well over.Lady Harriet flew off to Mr Sheepshanks to secure her respectable young farmer, and Mrs Gibson remained alone, wishing that Lady Cumnor would send one of her attendant gentlemen for her.It would be so much more agreeable to be sitting even at the fag-end of nobility than here on a bench with everybody; hoping that everybody would see Molly dancing away with a lord, yet vexed that the chance had so befallen that Molly instead of Cynthia was the young lady singled out; wondering if simplicity of dress was now become the highest fashion, and pondering on the possibility of cleverly inducing Lady Harriet to introduce Lord Albert Monson to her own beautiful daughter, Cynthia.Molly found Lord Hollingford, the wise and learned Lord Hollingford, strangely stupid in understanding the mystery of 'Cross hands and back again, down the middle and up again.' He was constantly getting hold of the wrong hands, and as constantly stopping when he had returned to his place, quite unaware that the duties of society and the laws of the dance required that he should go on capering till he had arrived at the bottom of the room.He perceived that he had performed his part very badly, and apologized to Molly when once they had arrived at that haven of comparative peace, and he expressed his regret so simply and heartily that she felt at her ease with him at once, especially when he had confided to her his reluctance at having to dance at all, and his only doing it under his sister's compulsion.To Molly he was an elderly widower, almost as old as her father, and by-and-by they got into very pleasant conversation.She learnt from him that Roger Hamley had just been publishing a paper in some scientific periodical, which had excited considerable attention, as it was intended to confute some theory of a great French physiologist, and Roger's article proved the writer to be possessed of a most unusual amount of knowledge on the subject.This piece of news was of great interest to Molly, and, in her questions, she herself evinced so much intelligence, and a mind so well prepared for the reception of information, that Lord Hollingford at any rate would have felt his quest of popularity a very easy affair indeed, if he might have gone on talking quietly to Molly during the rest of the evening.When he took her back to her place, he found Mr Gibson there, and fell into talk with him, until Lady Harriet once more came to stir him up to his duties.
Before very long, however, he returned to Mr Gibson's side, and began telling him of this paper of Roger Hamley's, of which Mr Gibson had not yet heard.
In the midst of their conversation, as they stood close by Mrs Gibson, Lord Hollingford saw Molly in the distance, and interrupted himself to say, 'What a charming little lady that daughter of yours is! Most girls of her age are so difficult to talk to; but she is intelligent and full of interest in all sorts of sensible things; well read, too - she was up in Le Régne Animal - and very pretty!' Mr Gibson bowed, much pleased at such a compliment from such a man, was he lord or not.It is very likely that if Molly had been a stupid listener, Lord Hollingford would not have discovered her beauty, or the converse might be asserted - if she had not been young and pretty he would not have exerted himself to talk on scientific subjects in a manner which she could understand.But in whatever manner Molly had won his approbation and admiration, there was no doubt that she had earned it somehow.And, when she next returned to her place, Mrs Gibson greeted her with soft words and a gracious smile;for it does not require much reasoning power to discover that if it is a very fine thing to be mother-in-law to a very magnificent three-tailed bashaw, it presupposes that the wife who makes the connection between the two parties is in harmony with her mother.And so far had Mrs Gibson's thoughts wandered into futurity.She only wished that the happy chance had fallen to Cynthia's instead of to Molly's lot.But Molly was a docile, sweet creature, very pretty, and remarkably intelligent, as my lord had said.It was a pity that Cynthia preferred making millinery to reading;but perhaps that could be rectified.And there was Lord Cumnor coming to speak to her, and Lady Cumnor nodding to her, and indicating a place by her side.It was not an unsatisfactory ball upon the whole to Mrs Gibson, although she paid the usual penalty for sitting up beyond her usual hour in perpetual glare and movement.The next morning she awoke irritable and fatigued;and a little of the same feeling oppressed both Cynthia and Molly.The former was lounging in the window-seat, holding a three-days-old newspaper in her hand, which she was making a pretence of reading, when she was startled by her mother's saying, - 'Cynthia! can't you take up a book and improve yourself.I am sure your conversation will never be worth listening to, unless you read something better than newspapers.Why don't you keep up your French? There was some French book that Molly was reading - Le Régne Animal , I think.' 'No! I never read it!' said Molly, blushing.'Mr Roger Hamley sometimes read pieces out of it when I was first at the Hall, and told me what it was about.' 'Oh! well.Then I suppose I was mistaken.But it comes to all the same thing.Cynthia, you really must learn to settle yourself to some improving reading every morning.' Rather to Molly's surprise, Cynthia did not reply a word; but dutifully went and brought down from among her Boulogne school-books, Le Siècle de Louis XIV.But after a while Molly saw that this 'improving reading'
was just as much a mere excuse for Cynthia's thinking her own thoughts as the newspaper had been.
