CHAPTER IV

MR GIBSON'S NEIGHBOURS


Molly grew up among these quiet people in calm monotony of life,
without any greater event than that which has been recorded,--the being
left behind at the Towers, until she was nearly seventeen. She had
become a visitor at the school, but she had never gone again to the
annual festival at the great house; it was easy to find some excuse for
keeping away, and the recollection of that day was not a pleasant one
on the whole, though she often thought how much she should like to see
the gardens again.

Lady Agnes was married; there was only Lady Harriet remaining at home;
Lord Hollingford, the eldest son, had lost his wife, and was a good
deal more at the Towers since he had become a widower. He was a tall
ungainly man, considered to be as proud as his mother, the countess;
but, in fact, he was only shy, and slow at making commonplace speeches.
He did not know what to say to people whose daily habits and interests
were not the same as his; he would have been very thankful for a
handbook of small-talk, and would have learnt off his sentences with
good-humoured diligence. He often envied the fluency of his garrulous
father, who delighted in talking to everybody, and was perfectly
unconscious of the incoherence of his conversation. But, owing to his
constitutional reserve and shyness, Lord Hollingford was not a popular