Chapter 19 - Page 2

decking up.'

'Perhaps; at any rate, she'll see we've tried to make it pretty. Yours is like hers. That's right. It might have hurt her, if hers had been smarter than yours. Now, good-night in your fine flimsy bed.'

Molly was up betimes - almost before it was light - arranging her pretty Hamley flowers in Cynthia's room. She could hardly eat her breakfast that morning. She ran upstairs and put on her things, thinking that Mrs Gibson was quite sure to go down to the 'George' Inn, where the 'Umpire' stopped, to meet her daughter after a two years' absence. But to her surprise Mrs Gibson had arranged herself at her great worsted-work frame, just as usual; and she, in her turn, was astonished at Molly's bonnet and cloak.

'Where are you going so early, child? The fog hasn't cleared away yet.'

'I thought you would go and meet Cynthia; and I wanted to go with you.'

'She will be here in half an hour; and dear papa has told the gardener to take the wheelbarrow down for her luggage. I'm not sure if he is not gone himself.'

'Then are not you going?' asked Molly, with a good deal of disappointment.

'No, certainly not. She will be here almost directly. And, besides, I don't like to expose my feelings to every passer-by in High Street. You forget I have not seen her for two years, and I hate scenes in the market-place.'

She settled herself to her work again; and Molly, after some consideration, gave up her own going, and employed herself in looking out of the downstairs window which commanded the approach from the town.

'Here she is - here she is!' she cried out at last. Her father was walking by the side of a tall young lady; William the gardener was wheeling along a great cargo of luggage. Molly flew to the front-door, and had it wide open to admit the new corner some time before she arrived.

'Well! here she is. Molly, this is Cynthia. Cynthia, Molly. You're to be sisters, you know.'

Molly saw the beautiful, tall, swaying figure, against the light of the open door, but could not see any of the features that were, for the moment, in shadow. A sudden gush of shyness had come over her just at the instant, and quenched the embrace she would have given a moment before. But Cynthia took her in her arms, and kissed her on both cheeks.

'Here's mamma,' she said, looking beyond Molly on to the stairs where Mrs Gibson stood, wrapped up in a shawl, and shivering in the cold. She ran past Molly and Mr Gibson, who rather averted their eyes from this first greeting between mother and child.

Mrs Gibson said, -

'Why, how you are grown, darling! You look quite a woman.'

'And so I am,' said Cynthia. 'I was before I went away; I've hardly grown since, - except, it is always to be hoped, in wisdom.'

'Yes! That we will hope,' said Mrs Gibson, in rather a meaning way. Indeed there were evidently hidden