"Well, well," said he; "at any rate, I thought I must do something to
protect Molly from such affairs while she was so young, and before I
had given my sanction. Miss Eyre's little nephew fell ill of scarlet
fever--"
"Ah! by-the-by, how careless of me not to inquire. How is the poor
little fellow?"
"Worse--better. It doesn't signify to what I've got to say now; the
fact was, Miss Eyre couldn't come back to my house for some time, and
I cannot leave Molly altogether at Hamley."
"Ah! I see now, why there was that sudden visit to Hamley. Upon my
word, it's quite a romance."
"I do like hearing of a love-affair," murmured Miss Phoebe.
"Then if you'll let me get on with my story, you shall hear of mine,"
said Mr. Gibson, quite beyond his patience with their constant
interruptions.
"Yours!" said Miss Phoebe, faintly.
"Bless us and save us!" said Miss Browning, with less sentiment in
her tone; "what next?"
"My marriage, I hope," said Mr. Gibson, choosing to take her
expression of intense surprise literally. "And that's what I came to
speak to you about."
A little hope darted up in Miss Phoebe's breast. She had often said
to her sister, in the confidence of curling-time (ladies wore curls
in those days), "that the only man who could ever bring her to think
of matrimony was Mr. Gibson; but that if he ever proposed, she
should feel bound to accept him, for poor dear Mary's sake;" never
explaining what exact style of satisfaction she imagined she should
give to her dead friend by marrying her late husband. Phoebe played
nervously with the strings of her black silk apron. Like the Caliph
in the Eastern story, a whole lifetime of possibilities passed
through her mind in an instant, of which possibilities the question
of questions was, Could she leave her sister? Attend, Phoebe, to
the present moment, and listen to what is being said before you
distress yourself with a perplexity which will never arise.
"Of course it has been an anxious thing for me to decide who I should
ask to be the mistress of my family, the mother of my girl; but I
think I've decided rightly at last. The lady I have chosen--"
"Tell us at once who she is, there's a good man," said
straight-forward Miss Browning.
"Mrs. Kirkpatrick," said the bridegroom elect.
"What! the governess at the Towers, that the countess makes so much
of?"
"Yes; she is much valued by them--and deservedly so. She keeps a
school now at Ashcombe, and is accustomed to housekeeping. She has
brought up the young ladies at the Towers, and has a daughter of her
own, therefore it is probable she will have a kind, motherly feeling
towards Molly."