Mr. Gibson had told his wife of Roger’s desire to have a personal interview with Cynthia, rather with a view to her repeating what he said to her daughter.  He did not see any exact necessity for this, it is true; but he thought that it might be advisable that she should know all the truth in which she was concerned, and he told his wife this.  But she took the affair into her own management, and, although she apparently agreed with Mr. Gibson, she never named the affair to Cynthia; all that she said to her was,—­

’Your old admirer, Roger Hamley, has come home in a great hurry in consequence of poor dear Osborne’s unexpected decease.  He must have been rather surprised to find the widow and her little boy established at the Hall.  He came to call here the other day, and made himself really rather agreeable, although his manners are not improved by the society he has kept on his travels.  Still I prophesy he will be considered as a fashionable “lion,” and perhaps the very uncouthness which jars against my sense of refinement, may even become admired in a scientific traveller, who has been into more desert places, and eaten more extraordinary food, than any other Englishman of the day.  I suppose he has given up all chance of inheriting the estate, for I hear he talks of returning to Africa, and becoming a regular wanderer.  Your name was not mentioned, but I believe he inquired about you from Mr. Gibson.’

‘There!’ said she to herself, as she folded up and directed this letter; ’that can’t disturb her, or make her uncomfortable.  And it’s all the truth too, or very near it.  Of course he’ll want to see her when she comes back; but by that time I do hope Mr. Henderson will have proposed again, and that that affair will be all settled.’

But Cynthia returned to Hollingford one Tuesday morning, and in answer to her mother’s anxious inquiries on the subject, would only say that Mr. Henderson had not offered again.  ’Why should he?  She had refused him once,’ and he did not know the reason of her refusal, at least one of the reasons.  She did not know if she should have taken him if there had been no such person as Roger Hamley in the world.  No!  Uncle and aunt Kirkpatrick had never heard anything about Roger’s offer,—­nor had her cousins.  She had always declared her wish to keep it a secret, and she had not mentioned it to any one, whatever other people might have done.’  Underneath this light and careless vein there were other feelings; but Mrs. Gibson was not one to probe beneath the surface.  She had set her heart on Mr Henderson’s marrying Cynthia very early in their acquaintance:  and to know, firstly, that the same wish had entered into his head, and that Roger’s attachment to Cynthia, with its consequences, had been the obstacle; and secondly, that Cynthia herself with all the opportunities of propinquity that she had lately had, had failed to provoke a repetition of the offer,—­it was, as Mrs. Gibson said, ‘enough to provoke a saint.’  All the rest of the day she alluded to Cynthia as a disappointing and ungrateful daughter; Molly could not make out why, and resented it for Cynthia, until the latter said, bitterly, ’Never mind, Molly.  Mamma is only vexed because Mr—–­because I have not come back an engaged young lady.’