Her preparations were thus in a very considerable state of forwardness, while Mr. Gibson had done nothing as yet towards any new arrangement or decoration of his house for his intended bride.  He knew he ought to do something.  But what?  Where to begin, when so much was out of order, and he had so little time for superintendence?  At length he came to the wise decision of asking one of the Miss Brownings to take the trouble of preparing all that was immediately requisite in his house, for old friendship’s sake; and resolved to leave all the more ornamental decorations that he proposed, to the taste of his future wife.  But before making his request to the Miss Brownings he had to tell them of his engagement, which had hitherto been kept a secret from the townspeople, who had set down his frequent visits at the Towers to the score of the countess’s health.  He felt how he should have laughed in his sleeve at any middle-aged widower who came to him with a confession of the kind he had now to make to the Miss Brownings, and disliked the idea of the necessary call:  but it was to be done, so one evening he went in ‘promiscuous,’ as they called it, and told them his story.  At the end of the first chapter—­that is to say, at the end of the story of Mr. Coxe’s calf-love, Miss Browning held up her hands in surprise.

’To think of Molly, as I have held in long-clothes, coming to have a lover!  Well, to be sure!  Sister Phoebe—­’ (she was just coming into the room), ’here’s a piece of news!  Molly Gibson has got a lover!  One may almost say she’s had an offer!  Mr. Gibson, may not one?—­and she’s but sixteen!’

‘Seventeen, sister,’ said Miss Phoebe, who piqued herself on knowing all about dear Mr. Gibson’s domestic affairs.  ’Seventeen, the 22nd of last June.’

‘Well, have it your own way.  Seventeen, if you like to call her so!’ said Miss Browning, impatiently.  ’The fact is still the same—­she’s got a lover; and it seems to me she was in long-clothes only yesterday.’

‘I’m sure I hope her course of true love will run smooth,’ said Miss Phoebe.

Now Mr. Gibson came in; for his story was not half told, and he did not want them to run away too far with the idea of Molly’s love-affair.

’Molly knows nothing about it.  I haven’t even named it to any one but you two, and to one other friend.  I trounced Coxe well, and did my best to keep his attachment—­as he calls it—­in bounds.  But I was sadly puzzled what to do about Molly.  Miss Eyre was away, and I couldn’t leave them in the house together without any older woman.’

‘Oh, Mr. Gibson! why did you not send her to us?’ broke in Miss Browning.  ’We would have done anything in our power for you; for your sake, as well as her poor dear mother’s.’

’Thank you.  I know you would, but it wouldn’t have done to have had her in Hollingford, just at the time of Coxe’s effervescence.  He’s better now.  His appetite has come back with double force, after the fasting he thought it right to exhibit.  He had three helpings of blackcurrant dumpling yesterday.’