‘I don’t understand it at all,’ said Molly.  ’I dislike Mr. Preston, but I should never think of taking such violent steps as you speak of, to get away from the neighbourhood in which he lives.’

‘No, because you are a reasonable little darling,’ said Cynthia, resuming her usual manner, and coming up to Molly, and kissing her.  ’At least you’ll acknowledge I’m a good hater!’

‘Yes.  But still I don’t understand it.’

’Oh, never mind!  There are old complications with our affairs at Ashcombe.  Money matters are at the root of it all.  Horrid poverty—­do let us talk of something else!  Or, better still, let me go and finish my letter to Roger, or I shall be too late for the African mail!’

’Is it not gone?  Oh, I ought to have reminded you!  It will be too late.  Did you not see the notice at the post-office that letters for—­ought to be in London on the morning of the 10th instead of the evening.  Oh, I am so sorry!’

’So am I, but it can’t be helped.  It is to be hoped it will be the greater treat when he does get it.  I’ve a far greater weight on my heart, because your father seems so displeased with me.  I was fond of him, and now he is making me quite a coward.  You see, Molly,’ continued she, a little piteously, ’I’ve never lived with people with such a high standard of conduct before; and I don’t quite know how to behave.’

‘You must learn,’ said Molly, tenderly.  ’You’ll find Roger quite as strict in his notions of right and wrong.’

‘Ah, but he’s in love with me!’ said Cynthia, with a pretty consciousness of her power.  Molly turned away her head, and was silent; it was of no use combating the truth, and she tried rather not to feel it—­not to feel, poor girl, that she too had a great weight on her heart, into the cause of which she shrank from examining.  That whole winter long she had felt as if her sun was all shrouded over with grey mist, and could no longer shine brightly for her.  She wakened up in the morning with a dull sense of something being wrong—­the world was out of joint, and, if she were born to set it right, she did not know how to do it.  Blind herself as she would, she could not help perceiving that her father was not satisfied with the wife he had chosen.  For a long time Molly had been surprised at his apparent contentment; sometimes she had been unselfish enough to be glad that he was satisfied; but still more frequently nature would have its way, and she was almost irritated at what she considered his blindness.  Something, however, had changed him now:  something that had arisen at the time of Cynthia’s engagement; he had become nervously sensitive to his wife’s failings, and his whole manner had grown dry and sarcastic, not merely to her, but sometimes to Cynthia,—­and even—­but this very rarely, to Molly herself.  He was not a man to go into passions, or ebullitions of feeling:  they would have relieved him, even while degrading him in his own eyes; but he became