"Wait quietly. Time enough when nature and circumstance have had
their chance, and have failed."
It was well that Molly was such a favourite with the old servants;
for she had frequently to restrain and to control. To be sure, she
had her father's authority to back her; and they were aware that
where her own comfort, ease, or pleasure was concerned she never
interfered, but submitted to their will. If the Squire had known of
the want of attendance to which she submitted with the most perfect
meekness, as far as she herself was the only sufferer, he would have
gone into a towering rage. But Molly hardly thought of it, so anxious
was she to do all she could for others, and to remember the various
charges which her father gave her in his daily visits. Perhaps he
did not spare her enough; she was willing and uncomplaining; but one
day after Mrs. Osborne Hamley had "taken the turn," as the nurses
called it, when she was lying weak as a new-born baby, but with her
faculties all restored, and her fever gone,--when spring buds were
blooming out, and spring birds sang merrily,--Molly answered to her
father's sudden questioning that she felt unaccountably weary; that
her head ached heavily, and that she was aware of a sluggishness of
thought which it required a painful effort to overcome.
"Don't go on," said Mr. Gibson, with a quick pang of anxiety, almost
of remorse. "Lie down here--with your back to the light. I'll come
back and see you before I go." And off he went in search of the
Squire. He had a good long walk before he came upon Mr. Hamley in
a field of spring wheat, where the women were weeding, his little
grandson holding to his finger in the intervals of short walks of
inquiry into the dirtiest places, which was all his sturdy little
limbs could manage.
"Well, Gibson, and how goes the patient? Better? I wish we could
get her out of doors, such a fine day as it is. It would make her
strong as soon as anything. I used to beg my poor lad to come out
more. Maybe, I worried him; but the air is the finest thing for
strengthening that I know of. Though, perhaps, she'll not thrive in
English air as if she'd been born here; and she'll not be quite right
till she gets back to her native place, wherever that is."
"I don't know. I begin to think we shall get her quite round here;
and I don't know that she could be in a better place. But it's not
about her. May I order the carriage for my Molly?" Mr. Gibson's voice
sounded as if he was choking a little as he said these last words.