’I didn’t mind it, sir.  I was only sorry you were so uneasy.  I thought Osborne had gone home, for I knew it wasn’t much in his way,’ said Roger.

Molly intercepted a glance between the two brothers—­a look of true confidence and love, which suddenly made her like them both under the aspect of relationship—­new to her observation.

Roger came up to her, and sate down by her.

’Well, and how are you getting on with Huber; don’t you find him very interesting?’

‘I’m afraid,’ said Molly, penitently, ’I haven’t read much.  The Miss Brownings like me to talk; and, besides, there is so much to do at home before papa comes back; and Miss Browning doesn’t like me to go without her.  I know it sounds nothing, but it does take up a great deal of time.’

‘When is your father coming back?’

‘Next Tuesday, I believe.  He cannot stay long away.’

‘I shall ride over and pay my respects to Mrs. Gibson,’ said he.  ’I shall come as soon as I may.  Your father has been a very kind friend to me ever since I was a boy.  And when I come, I shall expect my pupil to have been very diligent,’ he concluded, smiling his kind, pleasant smile at idle Molly.

Then the carriage came round, and she had the long solitary drive back to Miss Brownings’.  It was dark out of doors when she got there; but Miss Phoebe was standing on the stairs, with a lighted candle in her hand, peering into the darkness to see Molly come in.

’Oh, Molly!  I thought you’d never come back.  Such a piece of news!  Sister has gone to bed; she’s had a headache—­with the excitement, I think; but she says it’s new bread.  Come upstairs softly, my dear, and I’ll tell you what it is!  Who do you think has been here,—­drinking tea with us, too, in the most condescending manner?’

‘Lady Harriet?’ said Molly, suddenly enlightened by the word ‘condescending.’

’Yes.  Why, how did you guess it?  But, after all, her call, at any rate in the first instance, was upon you.  Oh dear, Molly! if you’re not in a hurry to go to bed, let me sit down quietly and tell you all about it; for my heart jumps into my mouth still when I think of how I was caught.  She—­that is, her ladyship—­left the carriage at the “George,” and took to her feet to go shopping—­just as you or I may have done many a time in our lives.  And sister was taking her forty winks; and I was sitting with my gown up above my knees and my feet on the fender, pulling out my grandmother’s lace which I’d been washing.  The worst has yet to be told.  I’d taken off my cap, for I thought it was getting dusk and no one would come, and there was I in my black silk skull-cap, when Nancy put her head in, and whispered, “There’s a lady downstairs—­a real grand one, by her talk;” and in there came my Lady Harriet, so sweet and pretty in her ways, it was some time before I remembered I had never a cap on.  Sister never wakened; or never roused up, so to say.  She says she thought it was Nancy