One pardons everything to extreme grief, however.But you will have enough to do to occupy all your strength for days to come; and go to bed you must now.I only wish I saw my way as clearly through other things as I do to your nearest duty.I wish I'd never let Roger go wandering off; he'll wish it too, poor fellow! Did I tell you Cynthia is going off in hot haste to her uncle Kirkpatrick's? I suspect a visit to him will stand in lieu of going out to Russia as a governess.' 'I am sure she was quite serious in wishing for that.' 'Yes, yes! at the time.I've no doubt she thought she was sincere in intending to go.But the great thing was to get out of the unpleasantness of the present time and place; and uncle Kirkpatrick's will do this as effectually, and more pleasantly, than a situation at Nishni-Novgorod in an ice-palace.' He had given Molly's thoughts a turn, which was what he wanted to do.Molly could not help remembering Mr Henderson; and his offer, and all the consequent hints; and wondering, and wishing - what did she wish? or had she been falling asleep? Before she had quite ascertained this point she was asleep in reality.After this, long days passed over in a monotonous round of care; for no one seemed to think of Molly's leaving the Hall during the woeful illness that befell Mrs Osborne Hamley.It was not that her father allowed her to take much active part in the nursing; the squire gave him carte-blanche , and he engaged two efficient hospital nurses to watch over the unconscious Aimée; but Molly was needed to receive the finer directions as to her treatment and diet.It was not that she was wanted for the care of the little boy; the squire was too jealous of the child's exclusive love for that, and one of the housemaids was employed in the actual physical charge of him; but he needed some one to listen to his incontinence of language, both when his passionate regret for his dead son came uppermost, and also when he had discovered some extraordinary charm in that son's child; and again when he was oppressed with the uncertainty of Aimée's long-continued illness.Molly was not so good or so bewitching a listener to ordinary conversation as Cynthia; but where her heart was interested her sympathy was deep and unfailing.In this case she only wished that the squire could really feel that Aimée was not the encumbrance which he evidently considered her to be.Not that he would have acknowledged the fact, if it had been put before him in plain words.He fought against the dim consciousness of what was in his mind; he spoke repeatedly of patience when no one but himself was impatient; he would often say that when she grew better she must not be allowed to leave the Hall until she was perfectly strong, when no one was even contemplating the remotest chance of her leaving her child, excepting only himself.Molly once or twice asked her father if she might not speak to the squire, and represent the hardship of sending her away - the improbability that she would consent to quit her boy, and so on; but Mr Gibson only replied, - '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, case, 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 is not about her.
