some men think it necessary to assume with every woman under five-and-twenty.  Mr Preston was very handsome, and knew it.  He was a fair man, with light-brown hair and whiskers; grey, roving, well-shaped eyes, with lashes darker than his hair; and a figure rendered easy and supple by the athletic exercises in which his excellence was famous, and which had procured him admission into much higher society than he was otherwise entitled to enter.  He was a capital cricketer; was so good a shot, that any house desirous of reputation for its bags on the 12th or the 1st, was glad to have him for a guest.  He taught young ladies to play billiards on a wet day, or went in for the game in serious earnest when required, He knew half the private theatrical plays off by heart, and was invaluable in arranging impromptu charades and tableaux.  He had his own private reasons for wishing to get up a flirtation with Molly just at this time; he had amused himself so much with the widow when she first came to Ashcombe, that he fancied that the sight of him, standing by her less polished, less handsome, middle-aged husband, might be too much of a contrast to be agreeable.  Besides, he had really a strong passion for some one else; some one who would be absent; and that passion it was necessary for him to conceal.  So that, altogether, he had resolved, even had ‘the little Gibson-girl’ (as he called her) been less attractive than she was, to devote himself to her for the next sixteen hours.

They were taken by their host into a wainscoted parlour, where a wood fire crackled and burnt, and the crimson curtains shut out the waning day and the outer chill.  Here the table was laid for dinner; snowy table-linen, bright silver, clear sparkling glass, wine and an autumnal dessert on the sideboard.  Yet Mr. Preston kept apologizing to Molly for the rudeness of his bachelor home, for the smallness of the room, the great dining-room being already appropriated by his housekeeper, in preparation for the morrow’s breakfast.  And then he rang for a servant to show Molly to her room.  She was taken into a most comfortable chamber:  a wood fire on the hearth, candles lighted on the toilette- table, dark woollen curtains surrounding a snow-white bed, great vases of china standing here and there.

’This is my Lady Harriet’s room when her ladyship comes to the Manor-house with my lord the earl,’ said the housemaid, striking out thousands of brilliant sparks by a well-directed blow at a smouldering log.  ‘Shall I help you to dress, miss?  I always helps her ladyship.’

Molly, quite aware of the fact that she had but her white muslin gown for the wedding besides that she had on, dismissed the good woman, and was thankful to be left to herself.