‘He’s sturdy chap, is not he?’ said the squire, stroking the little Roger’s curly head.  ’And he can puff four puffs at grandpapa’s pipe without being sick, can’t he?’

‘I s’ant puff any more puffs,’ said the boy, resolutely.  ’Mamma says no.  I s’ant.’

‘That’s just like her!’ said the squire, dropping his voice this time however.  ‘As if it could do the child any harm!’

Molly made a point of turning the conversation from all personal subjects after this, and kept the squire talking about the progress of his drainage during the rest of lunch.  He offered to take her to see it; and she acceded to the proposal, thinking, meantime, how little she need have anticipated the being thrown too intimately with Roger, who seemed to devote himself to his sister-in-law.  But, in the evening, when Aimee had gone upstairs to put her boy to bed, and the squire was asleep in his easy chair, a sudden flush of memory brought Mrs. Goodenough’s words again to her mind.  She was virtually tete-a-tete with Roger, as she had been dozens of times before, but now she could not help assuming an air of constraint:  her eyes did not meet his in the old frank way; she took up a book at a pause in the conversation, and left him puzzled and annoyed at the change in her manner.  And so it went on during all the time of her visit.  If sometimes she forgot and let herself go into all her old naturalness, by-and-by she checked herself, and became comparatively cold and reserved.  Roger was pained at all this—­more pained day after day; more anxious to discover the cause.  Aimee, too, silently noticed how different Molly became in Roger’s presence.  One day she could not help saying to Molly,—­

’Don’t you like Roger?  You would if you only knew how good he was!  He is learned, but that is nothing; it is his goodness that one admires and loves.’

‘He is very good,’ said Molly.  ’I have known him long enough to know that.’

’But you don’t think him agreeable?  He is not like my poor husband, to be sure; and you knew him well, too.  Ah! tell me about him once again.  When you first knew him?  When his mother was alive?’

Molly had grown very fond of Aimee; when the latter was at her ease she had very charming and attaching ways; but feeling uneasy in her position in the squire’s house, she was almost repellent to him; and he, too, put on his worst side to her.  Roger was most anxious to bring them together, and had several consultations with Molly as to the best means of accomplishing this end.  As long as they talked upon this subject she spoke to him in the quiet sensible manner which she inherited from her father; but when their discussions on this point were ended, she fell back into her piquant assumption of dignified reserve.  It was very difficult to her to maintain this strange manner, especially when once or twice she fancied that it gave him pain; and she would go into her own room and suddenly