need be on one's guard as to what one says before her. To think of her
never having thought of the chance of a step-mother. To be sure, a
step-mother to a girl is a different thing to a second wife to a man!'




CHAPTER VII

FORESHADOWS OF LOVE PERILS


If Squire Hamley had been unable to tell Molly who had ever been
thought of as her father's second wife, fate was all this time
preparing an answer of a pretty positive kind to her wondering
curiosity. But fate is a cunning hussy, and builds up her plans as
imperceptibly as a bird builds her nest; and with much the same kind of
unconsidered trifles.' The first 'trifle' of an event was the
disturbance which Jenny (Mr. Gibson's cook) chose to make at Bethia's
being dismissed. Bethia was a distant relation and _protegee_ of
Jenny's, and she chose to say it was Mr. Coxe the tempter who ought to
have 'been sent packing,' not Bethia the tempted, the victim. In this
view there was quite enough plausibility to make Mr. Gibson feel that
he had been rather unjust. He had, however, taken care to provide
Bethia with another situation, to the full as good as that which she
held in his family. Jenny, nevertheless, chose to give warning; and
though Mr. Gibson knew full well from former experience that her
warnings were words, not deeds, he hated the discomfort, the
uncertainty,--the entire disagreeableness of meeting a woman at any
time in his house, who wore a grievance and an injury upon her face as