第73章 MOLLY GIBSON'S NEW FRIENDS (5)

Please tell me all about her.' He hesitated a moment before speaking.He smiled a little before replying.'She's very beautiful; that of course is understood when I say that this miniature does not come up to her for beauty.' 'And besides? - Go on, please.' 'What do you mean by "besides"?' 'Oh! I suppose she's very clever and accomplished?' That was not in the least what Molly wanted to ask; but it was difficult to word the vague vastness of her unspoken inquiry.'She is clever naturally; she has picked up accomplishments.But she has such a charm about her, one forgets what she herself is in the halo that surrounds her.You ask me all this, Miss Gibson, and I answer truthfully;or else I should not entertain one young lady with my enthusiastic praises of another.' 'I don't see why not,' said Molly.'Besides, if you wouldn't do it in general, I think you ought to do it in my case; for you, perhaps, don't know, but she is coming to live with us when she leaves school, and we are very nearly the same age; so it will be almost like having a sister.' 'She is to live with you, is she?' said Mr Preston, to whom this intelligence was news.'And when is she to leave school? I thought she would surely have been at this wedding; but I was told she was not to come.When is she to leave school?' 'I think it is to be at Easter.You know she's at Boulogne, and it's a long journey for her to come alone; or else papa wished for her to be at the marriage very much indeed.' 'And her mother prevented it? - I understand.' 'No, it wasn't her mother; it was the French schoolmistress, who didn't think it desirable.' 'It comes to pretty much the same thing.And she's to return and live with you after Easter?' 'I believe so.Is she a grave or a merry person?' 'Never very grave, as far as I have seen of her.Sparkling would be the word for her, I think.Do you ever write to her? If you do, pray remember me to her, and tell her how we have been talking about her - you and I.' 'I never write to her,' said Molly, rather shortly.Tea came in; and after that they all went to bed, Molly heard her father exclaim at the fire in his bedroom, and Mr Preston's reply, - 'I pique myself on my keen relish for all creature comforts, and also on my power of doing without them, if need be.My lord's woods are ample, and I indulge myself with a fire in my bedroom for nine months in the year;yet I could travel in Iceland without wincing from the cold.'