Now the first person out of the house to notice Cynthia’s change of look and manner was Roger Hamley—­and yet he did not see her until, under the influence of the nauseous mixture, she was beginning to recover.  But his eyes were scarcely off her during the first five minutes he was in the room.  All the time he was trying to talk to Mrs. Gibson in reply to her civil platitudes, he was studying Cynthia; and at the first convenient pause he came and stood before Molly, so as to interpose his person between her and the rest of the room; for some visitors had come in subsequent to his entrance.

’Molly, how ill your sister is looking!  What is it?  Has she had advice?  You must forgive me, but so often those who live together in the same house don’t observe the first approaches of illness.’

Now Molly’s love for Cynthia was fast and unwavering, but if anything tried it, it was the habit Roger had fallen into of always calling Cynthia Molly’s sister in speaking to the latter.  From any one else it would have been a matter of indifference to her, and hardly to be noticed; it vexed both ear and heart when Roger used the expression; and there was a curtness of manner as well as of words in her reply.

’Oh! she was over-tired by the ball.  Papa has seen her, and says she will be all right very soon.’

‘I wonder if she wants change of air?’ said Roger, meditatively.  ’I wish—­I do wish we could have her at the Hall; you and your mother too, of course.  But I don’t see how it would be possible—­or else how charming it would be!’

Molly felt as if a visit to the Hall under such circumstances would be altogether so different an affair to all her former ones, that she could hardly tell if she should like it or not.

Roger went on,—­

’You got our flowers in time, did you not?  Ah! you don’t know how often I thought of you that evening!  And you enjoyed it too, didn’t you?—­you had plenty of agreeable partners, and all that makes a first ball delightful?  I heard that your sister danced every dance.’

‘It was very pleasant,’ said Molly, quietly.  ’But, after all, I’m not sure if I want to go to another just yet; there seems to be so much trouble connected with a ball.’

‘Ah! you are thinking of your sister, and her not being well?’

‘No, I was not,’ said Molly, rather bluntly.  ’I was thinking of the dress, and the dressing, and the weariness the next day.’

He might think her unfeeling if he liked; she felt as if she had only too much feeling just then, for it was bringing on her a strange contraction of heart.  But he was too inherently good himself to put any harsh construction on her speech.  Just before he went away, while he was ostensibly holding her hand and wishing her good-by, he said to her in a voice too low to be generally heard,—­

’Is there anything I could do for your sister?  We have plenty of books, as you know, if she cares for reading.’  Then, receiving no affirmative look or word from Molly in reply to this suggestion, he went on,—­’Or flowers? she likes flowers.  Oh! and our forced strawberries are just ready—­I will bring some over to-morrow.’