Perhaps it is incompatible with very high principle; as its essence seems to consist in the most exquisite power of adaptation to varying people and still more various moods; 'being all things to all men.' At any rate, Molly might soon have been aware that Cynthia was not remarkable for unflinching morality; but the glamour thrown over her would have prevented Molly from any attempt at penetrating into and judging her companion's character, even had such processes been the least in accordance with her own disposition.Cynthia was very beautiful, and was so well aware of this fact that she had forgotten to care about it; no one with such loveliness ever appeared so little conscious of it.Molly would watch her perpetually as she moved about the room, with the free stately step of some wild animal of the forest - moving almost, as it were, to the continual sound of music.Her dress, too, though now to our ideas it would be considered ugly and disfiguring, was suited to her complexion and figure, and the fashion of it subdued within due bounds by her exquisite taste.It was inexpensive enough, and the changes in it were but few.Mrs Gibson professed herself shocked to find that Cynthia had but four gowns, when she might have stocked herself so well, and brought over so many useful French patterns, if she had but patiently awaited her mother's answer to the letter which she had sent announcing her return by the opportunity madame had found for her.Molly was hurt for Cynthia at all these speeches; she thought they implied that the pleasure which her mother felt in seeing her a fortnight sooner after her two years' absence was inferior to that which she would have received from a bundle of silver-paper patterns.But Cynthia took no apparent notice of the frequent recurrence of these small complaints.Indeed, she received much of what her mother said with a kind of complete indifference, that made Mrs Gibson hold her rather in awe; and she was much more communicative to Molly than to her own child.With regard to dress, however, Cynthia soon showed that she was her mother's own daughter in the manner in which she could use her deft and nimble fingers.She was a capital workwoman;and, unlike Molly, who excelled in plain sewing, but had no notion of dressmaking or millinery, she could repeat the fashions she had only seen in passing along the streets of Boulogne, with one or two pretty rapid movements of her hands, as she turned and twisted the ribbons and gauze her mother furnished her with.So she refurbished Mrs Gibson's wardrobe; doing it all in a sort of contemptuous manner, the source of which Molly could not quite make out.Day after day the course of these small frivolities was broken in upon by the news Mr Gibson.brought of Mrs Hamley's nearer approach to death.
Molly - very often sitting by Cynthia, and surrounded by ribbon, and wire, and net - heard the bulletins like the toll of a funeral bell at a marriage feast.Her father sympathized with her.It was the loss of a dear friend to him too; but he was so accustomed to death, that it seemed to him but as it was, the natural end of all things human.To Molly, the death of some one she had known so well and loved so much, was a sad and gloomy phenomenon.She loathed the small vanities with which she was surrounded, and would wander out into the frosty garden, and pace the walk, which was both sheltered and concealed by evergreens.At length - and yet it was not so long, not a fortnight since Molly had left the Hall - the end came.Mrs Hamley had sunk out of life as gradually as she had sunk out of consciousness and her place in this world.The quiet waves closed over her, and her place knew her no more.'They all sent their love to you, Molly,' said her father.'Roger Hamley said he knew how you would feel it.' Mr Gibson had come in very late, and was having a solitary dinner in the dining-room.Molly was sitting near him to keep him company.Cynthia and her mother were upstairs.The latter was trying on a head-dress which Cynthia had made for her.Molly remained downstairs after her father had gone out afresh on his final round among his town patients.The fire was growing very low, and the lights were waning.Cynthia came softly in, and taking Molly's listless hand, that hung down by her side, sate at her feet on the rug, chafing her chilly fingers without speaking.The tender action thawed the tears that had been gathering heavily at Molly's heart, and they came dropping down her cheeks.'You loved her dearly, did you not, Molly?' 'Yes,' sobbed Molly; and then there was a silence.'Had you known her long?' 'No, not a year.But I had seen a great deal of her.I was almost like a daughter to her; she said so.Yet I never bid her good-by, or anything.
