But Mrs. Hamley was only too much charmed with the prospect of having a young girl for a visitor; one whom it would not be a trouble to entertain; who might be sent out to ramble in the gardens, or told to read when the invalid was too much fatigued for conversation; and yet one whose youth and freshness would bring a charm, like a waft of sweet summer air, into her lonely shut-up life.  Nothing could be pleasanter, and so Molly’s visit to Hamley was easily settled.

‘I only wish Osborne and Roger had been at home,’ said Mrs. Hamley, in her slow soft voice.  ’She may find it dull being with old people, like the squire and me, from morning till night.  When can she come? the darling—­I am beginning to love her already!’

Mr. Gibson was very glad in his heart that the young men of the house were out of the way; he did not want his little Molly to be passing from Scylla to Charybdis; and, as he afterwards scoffed at himself for thinking, he had got an idea that all young men were wolves in chase of his one ewe-lamb.

‘She knows nothing of the pleasure in store for her,’ he replied; ’and I am sure I don’t know what feminine preparations she may think necessary, or how long they may take.  You’ll remember she is a little ignoramus, and has had no . . . no training in etiquette; our ways at home are rather rough for a girl, I’m afraid.  But I know I could not send her into a kinder atmosphere than this.’

When the squire heard from his wife of Mr. Gibson’s proposal, he was as much pleased as she at the prospect of their youthful visitor; for he was a man of a hearty hospitality, when his pride did not interfere with its gratification; and he was delighted to think of his sick wife’s having such an agreeable companion in her hours of loneliness.  After a while he said,—­’It’s as well the lads are at Cambridge; we might have been having a love-affair if they had been at home.’

‘Well—­and if we had?’ asked his more romantic wife.

‘It would not have done,’ said the squire, decidedly.  ’Osborne will have had a first-rate education—­as good as any man in the county—­ he’ll have this property, and he’s a Hamley of Hamley; not a family in the shire is as old as we are, or settled on their ground so well.  Osborne may marry where he likes.  If Lord Hollingford had a daughter, Osborne would have been as good a match as she could have required.  It would never do for him to fall in love with Gibson’s daughter—­I should not allow it.  So it’s as well he’s out of the way.’

‘Well! perhaps Osborne had better look higher.’

‘"Perhaps!” I say he must.’  The squire brought his hand down with a thump on the table, near him, which made his wife’s heart beat hard for some minutes.  ‘And as for Roger,’ he continued, unconscious of the flutter he had put her into, ’he’ll have to make his own way, and earn his own bread; and, I’m afraid, he’s not getting on very brilliantly at Cambridge.  He must not think of falling in love for these ten years.’