He looked round the table as he sate down.  ‘Nothing here,’ said he.  ’Is there not some cold game-pie?  I’ll ring for that.’

Molly was trying to reconcile the ideal with the real.  The ideal was agile, yet powerful, with Greek features and an eagle-eye, capable of enduring long fasting, and indifferent as to what he ate.  The real was almost effeminate in movement, though not in figure; he had the Greek features, but his blue eyes had a cold, weary expression in them.  He was dainty in eating, and had anything but a Homeric appetite.  However, Molly’s hero was not to eat more than Ivanhoe, when he was Friar Tuck’s guest;’ and, after all, with a little alteration, she began to think Mr. Osborne Hamley might turn out a poetical, if not a chivalrous hero.  He was extremely attentive to his mother, which pleased Molly, and, in return, Mrs. Hamley seemed charmed with him to such a degree that Molly once or twice fancied that mother and son would have been happier in her absence.  Yet, again, it struck on the shrewd, if simple girl, that Osborne was mentally squinting at her in the conversation which was directed to his mother.  There were little turns and ‘fioriture’ of speech which Molly could not help feeling were graceful antics of language not common in the simple daily intercourse between mother and son.  But it was flattering rather than otherwise to perceive that a very fine young man, who was a poet to boot, should think it worth while to talk on the tight rope for her benefit.  And before the afternoon was ended, without there having been any direct conversation between Osborne and Molly, she had reinstated him on his throne in her imagination; indeed, she had almost felt herself disloyal to her dear Mrs. Hamley when, in the first hour after her introduction, she had questioned his claims on his mother’s idolatry.  His beauty came out more and more, as he became animated in some discussion with her; and all his attitudes, if a little studied, were graceful in the extreme.  Before Molly left, the squire and Roger returned from Canonbury.

‘Osborne here!’ said the squire, red and panting.  ’Why the deuce couldn’t you tell us you were coming home?  I looked about for you everywhere, just as we were going into the ordinary.  I wanted to introduce you to Grantley, and Fox, and Lord Forrest-men from the other side of the county, whom you ought to know; and Roger there missed above half his dinner hunting about for you; and all the time you’d stole away, and were quietly sitting here with the women.  I wish you’d let me know the next time you make off.  I’ve lost half my pleasure in looking at as fine a lot of cattle as I ever saw, with thinking you might be having one of your old attacks of faintness.’

’I should have had one, I think, if I’d stayed longer in that atmosphere.  But I’m sorry if I’ve caused you anxiety.’

‘Well! well!’ said the squire, somewhat mollified.  ’And Roger, too,—­ there I’ve been sending him here and sending him there all the afternoon.’