’At any rate, I may come after lunch is over, and the afternoons and the evenings will be the most delicious time of day a month hence.’  He said this to both Molly and Cynthia, but in his heart he addressed it to the latter.

Mrs. Gibson affected not to hear what he was saying, but held out her limp hand once more to him.

’I suppose we shall see you when you return; and pray tell your brother how we are longing to have a visit from him again.’

When he had left the room, Molly’s heart was quite full.  She had watched his face, and read something of his feelings:  his disappointment at their non-acquiescence in his plan of a day’s pleasure in Hurst Wood, the delayed conviction that his presence was not welcome to the wife of his old friend, which had come so slowly upon him—­perhaps, after all, these things touched Molly more keenly than they did him.  His bright look when Cynthia gave him the rosebuds indicated a gush of sudden delight more vivid than the pain he had shown by his previous increase of gravity.

‘I can’t think why he will come at such untimely hours,’ said Mrs Gibson, as soon as she heard him fairly out of the house.  ’It’s different from Osborne; we are so much more intimate with him:  he came and made friends with us all the time this stupid brother of his was muddling his brains with mathematics at Cambridge.  Fellow of Trinity, indeed!  I wish he would learn to stay there, and not come intruding here, and assuming that because I asked Osborne to join in a picnic it was all the same to me which brother came.’

’In short, mamma, one man may steal a horse, but another must not look over the hedge,’ said Cynthia, pouting a little.

’And the two brothers have always been treated so exactly alike by their friends, and there has been such a strong friendship between them, that it is no wonder Roger thinks he may be welcome where Osborne is allowed to come at all hours,’ continued Molly, in high dudgeon.  ‘Roger’s “muddled brains,” indeed!  Roger, “stupid!"’

’Oh, very well, my dears!  When I was young it wouldn’t have been thought becoming for girls of your age to fly out because a little restraint was exercised as to the hours at which they should receive the young men’s calls.  And they would have supposed that there might be good reasons why their parents disapproved of the visits of certain gentlemen, even while they were proud and pleased to see some members of the same family.’

‘But that was what I said, mamma,’ said Cynthia, looking at her mother with an expression of innocent bewilderment on her face.  ‘One man may—­’

’Be quiet, child!  All proverbs are vulgar, and I do believe that is the vulgarest of all.  You are really catching Roger Hamley’s coarseness, Cynthia!’

‘Mamma,’ said Cynthia, roused to anger, ’I don’t mind your abusing me, but Mr. Roger Hamley has been very kind to me while I’ve not been well:  I can’t bear to hear him disparaged.  If he’s coarse, I’ve no objection to be coarse as well, for it seems to me it must mean kindliness and pleasantness, and the bringing of pretty flowers and presents.’