‘You here!’ said he, coming forward to shake hands.  ’Why, how did you come?’

’By the “Umpire.”  I never knew Molly had been so ill, or I would have come directly.’  Her eyes were full of tears.  Mr. Gibson was touched; he shook her hand again, and murmured, ‘You’re a good girl, Cynthia.’

‘She’s heard one of dear Lady Harriet’s exaggerated accounts,’ said Mrs. Gibson, ’and come straight off.  I tell her it’s very foolish, for really Molly is a great deal better now.’

‘Very foolish,’ said Mr. Gibson, echoing his wife’s words, but smiling at Cynthia.  ’But sometimes one likes foolish people for their folly, better than wise people for their wisdom.’

‘I am afraid folly always annoys me,’ said his wife.  ’However, Cynthia is here, and what is done, is done.’

’Very true, my dear.  And now I’ll run up and see my little girl, and tell her the good news.  You’d better follow me in a couple of minutes.’  This to Cynthia.

Molly’s delight at seeing her showed itself first in a few happy tears; and then in soft caresses and inarticulate sounds of love.  Once or twice she began, ‘It is such a pleasure,’ and there she stopped short.  But the eloquence of these five words sank deep into Cynthia’s heart.  She had returned just at the right time, when Molly wanted the gentle fillip of the society of a fresh and yet a familiar person.  Cynthia’s tact made her talkative or silent, gay or grave, as the varying humour of Molly required.  She listened, too, with the semblance, if not the reality, of unwearied interest, to Molly’s continual recurrence to all the time of distress and sorrow at Hamley Hall, and to the scenes which had then so deeply impressed themselves upon her susceptible nature.  Cynthia instinctively knew that the repetition of all these painful recollections would ease the oppressed memory, which refused to dwell on anything but what had occurred at a time of feverish disturbance of health.  So she never interrupted Molly, as Mrs. Gibson had so frequently done, with,—­’You told me all that before, my dear.  Let us talk of something else;’ or, ’Really I cannot allow you to be always dwelling on painful thoughts.  Try and be a little more cheerful.  Youth is gay.  You are young, and therefore you ought to be gay.  That is put in a famous form of speech; I forget exactly what it is called.’

So Molly’s health and spirits improved rapidly after Cynthia’s return; and although she was likely to retain many of her invalid habits during the summer, she was able to take drives, and enjoy the fine weather; it was only her as yet tender spirits that required a little management.  All the Hollingford people forgot that they had ever thought of her except as the darling of the town; and each in his or her way showed kind interest in her father’s child.  Miss Browning and Miss Phoebe considered it quite a privilege that they were allowed to see her a fortnight or three weeks before any one else; Mrs. Goodenough, spectacles on nose, stirred dainty messes in a silver saucepan for Molly’s benefit; the Towers sent books and forced fruit, and new caricatures, and strange and delicate poultry; humble patients of ’the doctor,’ as Mr. Gibson was usually termed, left the earliest cauliflowers they could grow in their cottage gardens, with ’their duty for Miss.’