ABSTRACT
Mrs. Gibson was slow in recovering her strength after the influenza, and before she was well enough to accept Lady Harriet’s invitation to the Towers, Cynthia came home from London. If Molly had thought her manner of departure was scarcely as affectionate and considerate as it might have been, – if such a thought had crossed Molly’s fancy for an instant, she was repentant for it as soon as ever Cynthia returned, and the girls met together face to face, with all the old familiar affection, going upstairs to the drawing-room, with their arms round each other’s waists, and sitting there together hand in hand. Cynthia’s whole manner was more quiet than it had been, when the weight of her unpleasant secret rested on her mind, and made her alternately despondent or flighty.
