He kept on prattling while they played; sometimes in relation to the cards;at others telling her of small occurrences which he thought might interest her.'So you don't know my boys, even by sight.I should have thought you would have done, for they are fond enough of riding into Hollingford; and I know Roger has often enough been to borrow books from your father.Roger is a scientific sort of a fellow.Osborne is clever, like this mother.I should not wonder if he published a book some day.You're not counting right, Miss Gibson.Why, I could cheat you as easily as possible.' And so on, till the butler came in with a solemn look, placed a large prayer-book before his master, who huddled the cards away in a hurry, as if caught in an incongruous employment; and then the maids and men trooped in to prayers - the windows were still open, and the sounds of the solitary corncrake, and the owl hooting in the trees, mingled with the words spoken.Then to bed; and so ended the day.Molly looked out of her chamber window - leaning on the sill, and snuffing up the night odours of the honeysuckle.The soft velvet darkness hid everything that was at any distance from her; although she was as conscious of their presence as if she had seen them.'I think I shall be very happy here,' was in Molly's thoughts, as she turned away at length, and began to prepare for bed.Before long the squire's words, relating to her father's second marriage, came across her, and spoilt the sweet peace of her final thoughts.'Who could he have married?' she asked herself.'Miss Eyre? Miss Browning? Miss Phoebe? Miss Goodenough?'
One by one, each of these was rejected for sufficient reasons.Yet the unsatisfied question rankled in her mind, and darted out of ambush to disturb her dreams.Mrs Hamley did not come down to breakfast; and Molly found out, with a little dismay, that the squire and she were to have it tete-a-tete.
On this first morning he put aside his newspapers - one an old established Tory journal, with all the local and county news, which was the most interesting to him; the other the Morning Chronicle , which he called his dose of bitters, and which called out many a strong expression and tolerably pungent oath.To-day, however, he was 'on his manners,' as he afterwards explained to Molly; and he plunged about, trying to find ground for a conversation.
He could talk of his wife and his sons, his estate, and his mode of farming;his tenants, and the mismanagement of the last county election.Molly's interests were her father, Miss Eyre, her garden and pony; in a fainter degree the Miss Brownings, the Cumnor Charity School, and the new gown that was to come from Miss Rose's; into the midst of which the one great question, 'Who was it that people thought it was possible papa might marry?'
kept popping up into her mouth, like a troublesome Jack-in-the-box.For the present, however, the lid was snapped down upon the intruder as often as he showed his head between her teeth.They were very polite to each other during the meal; and it was not a little tiresome to both.When it was ended the squire withdrew into his study to read the untasted newspapers.
It was the custom to call the room in which Squire Hamley kept his coats, boots, and gaiters, his different sticks and favourite spud, his gun and fishing-rods, the study.There was a bureau in it, and a three-cornered arm-chair, but no books were visible.The greater part of them were kept in a large, musty-smelling room, in an unfrequented part of the house;so unfrequented that the housemaid often neglected to open the window-shutters, which looked into a part of the grounds over-grown with the luxuriant growth of shrubs.Indeed, it was a tradition in the servants' hall that, in the late squire's time - he who had been plucked at college - the library windows had been boarded up to avoid paying the window-tax.And when the 'young gentlemen' were at home the housemaid, without a single direction to that effect, was regular in her charge of this room; opened the windows and lighted fires daily, and dusted the handsomely-bound volumes, which were really a very fair collection of the standard literature in the middle of the last century.All the books that had been purchased since that time were held in small book-cases between each two of the drawing-room windows, and in Mrs Hamley's own sitting-room upstairs.Those in the drawing-room were quite enough to employ Molly; indeed she was so deep in one of Sir Walter Scott's novels that she jumped as if she had been shot, when an hour or so after breakfast the squire came to the gravel-path outside one of the windows, and called to ask her if she would like to come out of doors and go about the garden and home-fields with him.'It must be a little dull for you, my girl, all by yourself, with nothing but books to look at, in the mornings here; but you see, madam has a fancy for being quiet in the mornings: she told your father about it, and so did I, but I felt sorry for you all the same, when I saw you sitting on the ground all alone in the drawing-room.' Molly had been in the very middle of the Bride of Lammermoor , and would gladly have stayed in-doors to finish it, but she felt the squire's kindness all the same.They went in and out of old-fashioned greenhouses, over trim lawns, the squire unlocked the great walled kitchen-garden, and went about giving directions to gardeners; and all the time Molly followed him like a little dog, her mind quite full of 'Ravenswood' and 'Lucy Ashton.'
