From _Wives and Daughters_.
Mrs. Gibson intended the Hamleys to find this dinner pleasant; and
they did. Mr. Gibson was fond of the two young men, both for their
parents’ sake and their own, for he had known them since boyhood; and
to those whom he liked Mr. Gibson could be remarkably agreeable. Mrs.
Gibson really gave them a welcome—and cordiality in a hostess is a very
becoming mantle for any other deficiencies there may be. Cynthia and
Molly looked their best, which was all the duty Mrs. Gibson absolutely
required of them, as she was willing enough to take her full share in the
conversation. Osborne fell to her lot, of course, and for some time he
and she prattled on with all the ease of manner and commonplaceness of
meaning which go so far to make the “art of polite conversation.” Roger,
who ought to have made himself agreeable to one or the other of the young
ladies, was exceedingly interested in what Mr. Gibson was telling him
of a paper on comparative osteology in some foreign journal of science,
which Lord Hollingford was in the habit of forwarding to his friend the
country surgeon. Yet every now and then while he listened he caught his
attention wandering to the face of Cynthia, who was placed between his
brother and Mr. Gibson. She was not particularly occupied with attending
to anything that was going on; her eyelids were carelessly dropped,
as she crumbled her bread on the tablecloth, and her beautiful long
eyelashes were seen on the clear tint of her oval cheek. She was thinking
of something else; Molly was trying to understand with all her might.
Suddenly Cynthia looked up, and caught Roger’s gaze of intent admiration
too fully for her to be unaware that he was staring at her. She coloured
a little; but, after the first moment of rosy confusion at his evident
admiration of her, she flew to the attack, diverting his confusion at
thus being caught, to the defence of himself from her accusation.
“It is quite true!” she said to him. “I was not attending: you see I
don’t know even the A B C of science. But, please, don’t look so severely
at me, even if I am a dunce!”
“I didn’t know—I didn’t mean to look severely, I am sure,” replied he,
not knowing well what to say.
“Cynthia is not a dunce either,” said Mrs. Gibson, afraid lest her
daughter’s opinion of herself might be taken seriously. “But I have
always observed that some people have a talent for one thing and some
for another. Now Cynthia’s talents are not for science and the severer
studies. Do you remember, love, what trouble I had to teach you the use
of the globes?”
“Yes; and I don’t know longitude from latitude now; and I’m always
puzzled as to which is perpendicular and which is horizontal.”
“Yet, I do assure you,” her mother continued, rather addressing herself
to Osborne, “that her memory for poetry is prodigious. I have heard her
repeat the ‘Prisoner of Chillon’ from beginning to end.”
“It would be rather a bore to have to hear her, I think,” said Mr.
Gibson, smiling at Cynthia, who gave him back one of her bright looks of
mutual understanding.
“Ah, Mr. Gibson, I have found out before now that you have no soul for
poetry; and Molly there is your own child. She reads such deep books—all
about facts and figures: she’ll be quite a blue-stocking by and by.”
“Mamma,” said Molly, reddening, “you think it was a deep book because
there were the shapes of the different cells of bees in it! but it was
not at all deep. It was very interesting.”
“Never mind, Molly,” said Osborne. “I stand up for blue-stockings.”
“And I object to the distinction implied in what you say,” said Roger.
“It was not deep, _ergo_, it was very interesting. Now, a book may be
both deep and interesting.”
“Oh, if you are going to chop logic and use Latin words, I think it is
time for us to leave the room,” said Mrs. Gibson.
“Don’t let us run away as if we were beaten, mamma,” said Cynthia.
“Though it may be logic, I for one can understand what Mr. Roger Hamley
said just now; and I read some of Molly’s books; and whether it was deep
or not, I found it very interesting—more so than I should think the
‘Prisoner of Chillon’ nowadays. I’ve displaced the Prisoner to make room
for Johnnie Gilpin as my favourite poem.”
“How could you talk such nonsense, Cynthia!” said Mrs. Gibson, as the
girls followed her upstairs. “You know you are not a dunce. It is all
very well not to be a blue-stocking, because gentle-people don’t like
that kind of woman; but running yourself down, and contradicting all I
said about your liking for Byron, and poets and poetry—to Osborne Hamley
of all men, too!”
Mrs. Gibson spoke quite crossly for her.
“But, mamma,” Cynthia replied, “I am either a dunce, or I am not. If I
am, I did right to own it; if I am not, he’s a dunce if he doesn’t find
out I was joking.”
“Well,” said Mrs. Gibson, a little puzzled by this speech, and wanting
some elucidatory addition.
“Only that if he’s a dunce his opinion of me is worth nothing. So, any
way, it doesn’t signify.”
“You really bewilder me with your nonsense, child. Molly is worth twenty
of you.”
“I quite agree with you, mamma,” said Cynthia, turning round to take
Molly’s hand.
“Yes; but she ought not to be,” said Mrs. Gibson, still irritated. “Think
of the advantages you’ve had.”
“I’m afraid I had rather be a dunce than a blue-stocking,” said Molly;
for the term had a little annoyed her, and the annoyance was rankling
still.
“Hush; here they are coming: I hear the dining-room door! I never meant
you were a blue-stocking, dear, so don’t look vexed—Cynthia, my love,
where did you get those lovely flowers—anemones, are they? They suit your
complexion so exactly.”
“Come, Molly, don’t look so grave and thoughtful,” exclaimed Cynthia.
“Don’t you perceive mamma wants us to be smiling and amiable?”