Molly looked out of her chamber window—­leaning on the sill, and snuffing up the night odours of the honeysuckle.  The soft velvet darkness hid everything that was at any distance from her; although she was as conscious of their presence as if she had seen them.

‘I think I shall be very happy here,’ was in Molly’s thoughts, as she turned away at length, and began to prepare for bed.  Before long the squire’s words, relating to her father’s second marriage, came across her, and spoilt the sweet peace of her final thoughts.  ’Who could he have married?’ she asked herself.  ’Miss Eyre?  Miss Browning?  Miss Phoebe?  Miss Goodenough?’ One by one, each of these was rejected for sufficient reasons.  Yet the unsatisfied question rankled in her mind, and darted out of ambush to disturb her dreams.

Mrs. Hamley did not come down to breakfast; and Molly found out, with a little dismay, that the squire and she were to have it by themselves.  On this first morning he put aside his newspapers—­one an old established Tory journal, with all the local and county news, which was the most interesting to him; the other the Morning Chronicle, which he called his dose of bitters, and which called out many a strong expression and tolerably pungent oath.  To-day, however, he was ’on his manners,’ as he afterwards explained to Molly; and he plunged about, trying to find ground for a conversation.  He could talk of his wife and his sons, his estate, and his mode of farming; his tenants, and the mismanagement of the last county election.  Molly’s interests were her father, Miss Eyre, her garden and pony; in a fainter degree the Miss Brownings, the Cumnor Charity School, and the new gown that was to come from Miss Rose’s; into the midst of which the one great question, ’Who was it that people thought it was possible papa might marry?’ kept popping up into her mouth, like a troublesome Jack-in-the-box.  For the present, however, the lid was snapped down upon the intruder as often as he showed his head between her teeth.  They were very polite to each other during the meal; and it was not a little tiresome to both.  When it was ended the squire withdrew into his study to read the untasted newspapers.  It was the custom to call the room in which Squire Hamley kept his coats, boots, and gaiters, his different sticks and favourite spud, his gun and fishing-rods, the study.  There was a bureau in it, and a three-cornered arm-chair, but no books were visible.  The greater part of them were kept in a large, musty-smelling room, in an unfrequented part of the house; so unfrequented that the housemaid often neglected to open the window-shutters, which looked into a part of the grounds over-grown with the luxuriant growth of shrubs.  Indeed, it was a tradition in the servants’ hall that, in the late squire’s time—­he who had been plucked at college—­the library windows had been boarded up to avoid paying the window-tax.  And when the ’young gentlemen’ were at