ABSTRACT
One day, to Molly’s infinite surprise, Mr. Preston was announced as caller. Mrs. Gibson and she were sitting together in the drawing-room; Cynthia was out – gone into the town a-shopping – when the door was opened, the name given, and in walked the young man. His entrance seemed to cause more confusion than Molly could well account for. He came in with the same air of easy assurance with which he had received them at Ashcombe Manor-house. He looked remarkably handsome in his riding-dress, and with the open-air exercise he had just had. But Mrs. Gibson’s smooth brows contracted a little at the sight of him, and her reception of him was much cooler than that which she usually gave to visitors. Yet there was a degree of agitation in it, which surprised Molly a little. Mrs. Gibson was at her everlasting worsted-work frame when Mr. Preston entered the room; but somehow in rising to receive him, threw down her basket of crewels, 149 and, declining Molly’s offer to help her, she would pick up all the reels herself, before she asked her visitor to sit down. He stood there, hat in hand, affecting an interest in the recovery of the worsted which Molly was sure he did not feel; for all the time eyes were glancing round the room, and taking note of the details in the arrangement.
