I can respect, and I fancy I can admire, and I can like, but I never feel carried off my feet by love for any one, not even for you, little Molly, and I am sure I love you more than -- ' 'No, don't!' said Molly, putting her hand before Cynthia's mouth, in almost a passion of impatience.'Don't, don't - I won't hear you - I ought not to have asked you - it makes you tell lies!' 'Why, Molly!' said Cynthia, in her turn seeking to read Molly's face, 'what's the matter with you? One might think you cared for him yourself.' 'I?' said Molly, all the blood rushing to her heart suddenly; then it returned, and she had courage to speak, and she spoke the truth as she believed it, though not the real actual truth.'I do care for him; I think you have won the love of a prince amongst men.
Why, I am proud to remember that he has been to me as a brother, and Ilove him as a sister, and I love you doubly because he has honoured you with his love.' 'Come, that's not complimentary!' said Cynthia, laughing, but not ill-pleased to hear her lover's praises, and even willing to depreciate him a little in order to hear more.'He's well enough, I daresay, and a great deal too learned and clever for a stupid girl like me; but even you must acknowledge he is very plain and awkward; and I like pretty things and pretty people.' 'Cynthia, I won't talk to you about him.You know you don't mean what you are saying, and you only say it out of contradiction, because I praise him.He shan't be run down by you, even in joke.' 'Well, then, we won't talk of him at all.I was so surprised when he began to speak - so -- ' and Cynthia looked very lovely, blushing and dimpling up as she remembered his words and looks.Suddenly she recalled herself to the present time, and her eye caught on the leaf full of blackberries - the broad green leaf, so fresh and crisp when Molly had gathered it an hour or so ago, but now soft and flabby, and dying.Molly saw it, too, and felt a strange kind of sympathetic pity for the poor inanimate leaf.'Oh! what blackberries! you've gathered them for me, I know!' said Cynthia, sitting down and beginning to feed herself daintily, touching them lightly with the ends of her taper fingers, and dropping each ripe berry into her open mouth.When she had eaten about half she stopped suddenly short.'How I should like to have gone as far as Paris with him,' she exclaimed.
'I suppose it would not have been proper; but how pleasant it would have been.I remember at Boulogne' (another blackberry) 'how I used to envy the English who were going to Paris; it seemed to me then as if nobody stopped at Boulogne, but dull, stupid school-girls.' 'When will he be there?' asked Molly.'On Wednesday, he said.I'm to write to him there; at any rate he is going to write to me.' Molly went about the adjustment of her dress in a quiet, business-like manner, not speaking much; Cynthia, although sitting still, seemed very restless.Oh! how much Molly wished that she would go.'Perhaps, after all,' said Cynthia, after a pause of apparent meditation, 'we shall never be married.' 'Why do you say that?' said Molly, almost bitterly.'You have nothing to make you think so.I wonder how you can bear to think you won't, even for a moment.' 'Oh!' said Cynthia; 'you must not go and take me au grand sérieux.
I daresay I don't mean what I say, but you see everything seems a dream at present.Still, I think the chances are equal - the chances for and against our marriage, I mean.Two years! it's a long time; he may change his mind, or I may; or some one else may turn up, and say I'm engaged to him: what should you think of that, Molly? I'm putting such a gloomy thing as death quite on one side, you see; yet in two years how much may happen.' 'Don't talk so, Cynthia, please don't,' said Molly, piteously.'One would think you did not care for him, and he cares so much for you!' 'Why, did I say I did not care for him! I was only calculating chances.
I am sure I hope nothing will happen to prevent the marriage.Only, you know it may, and I thought I was taking a step in wisdom, in looking forward to all the evils that might befall.I am sure all the wise people I have ever known thought it a virtue to have gloomy prognostics of the future.
But you're not in a mood for wisdom or virtue, I see; so I'll go and get ready for dinner, and leave you to your vanities of dress.' She took Molly's face in both her hands, before Molly was aware of her intention, and kissed it playfully.Then she left Molly to herself.
