"I believe he is quite well. Some one said the other day that they
had met him riding--it was Mrs. Goodenough, now I remember--and that
he was looking stronger than he had done for years."
"Indeed! I am truly glad to hear it. I always was fond of Osborne;
and, do you know, I never really took to Roger? I respected him
and all that, of course; but to compare him with Mr. Henderson! Mr.
Henderson is so handsome and well-bred, and gets all his gloves from
Houbigant!"
It was true that they had not seen anything of Osborne Hamley for
a long time; but, as it often happens, just after they had been
speaking about him he appeared. It was on the day following Mr.
Gibson's departure that Mrs. Gibson received one of the notes, not
so common now as formerly, from the family in town, asking her to go
over to the Towers, and find a book, or a manuscript, or something or
other that Lady Cumnor wanted with all an invalid's impatience. It
was just the kind of employment she required for an amusement on a
gloomy day, and it put her into a good humour immediately. There was
a certain confidential importance about it, and it was a variety, and
it gave her the pleasant drive in a fly up the noble avenue, and the
sense of being the temporary mistress of all the grand rooms once so
familiar to her. She asked Molly to accompany her, out of an access
of kindness, but was not at all sorry when Molly excused herself and
preferred stopping at home. At eleven o'clock Mrs. Gibson was off,
all in her Sunday best (to use the servant's expression, which she
herself would so have contemned), well-dressed in order to impose on
the servants at the Towers, for there was no one else to see or to be
seen by.
"I shall not be at home until the afternoon, my dear! But I hope you
will not find it dull. I don't think you will, for you are something
like me, my love--never less alone than when alone, as one of the
great authors has justly expressed it."
Molly enjoyed the house to herself fully as much as Mrs. Gibson would
enjoy having the Towers to herself. She ventured on having her lunch
brought upon a tray into the drawing-room, so that she might eat
her sandwiches while she went on with her book. In the middle, Mr.
Osborne Hamley was announced. He came in, looking wretchedly ill in
spite of purblind Mrs. Goodenough's report of his healthy appearance.