was so unwise as to look in it.This room had been to the child one of the most dainty and luxurious places ever seen, in comparison with her own bare, white-dimity bedroom;and now she was sleeping in it, as a guest, and all the quaint adornments she had once peeped at as a great favour, as they were carefully wrapped up in cap-paper, were set out for her use.And yet how little she had deserved this hospitable care; how impertinent she had been; how cross she had felt ever since! She was crying tears of penitence and youthful misery when there came a low tap to the door.Molly opened it, and there stood Miss Browning, in a wonderful erection of a nightcap, and scantily attired in a coloured calico jacket over her scrimpy and short white petticoat.'I was afraid you were asleep, child,' said she, coming in and shutting the door.'But I wanted to say to you we've got wrong to-day, somehow;and I think it was perhaps my doing.It's as well Phoebe shouldn't know, for she thinks me perfect; and when there's only two of us, we get along better if one of us thinks the other can do no wrong.But I rather think I was a little cross.We'll not say any more about it, Molly; only we'll go to sleep friends, - and friends we'll always be, child, won't we? Now give me a kiss, and don't cry and swell your eyes up; - and put out your candle carefully.' 'I was wrong - it was my fault,' said Molly, kissing her.'Fiddlestick-ends! Don't contradict me! I say it was my fault, and I won't hear another word about it.' The next day Molly went with Miss Browning to see the changes going on in her father's house.To her they were but dismal improvements.The faint grey of the dining-room walls, which had harmonized well enough with the deep crimson of the moreen curtains, and which when well cleaned looked thinly coated rather than dirty, was now exchanged for a pink salmon-colour of a very glowing hue; and the new curtains were of that pale sea-green just coming into fashion.'Very bright and pretty,' Miss Browning called it; and in the first renewing of their love Molly could not bear to contradict her.She could only hope that the green and brown drugget would tone down the brightness and prettiness.There was scaffolding here, scaffolding there, and Betty scolding everywhere.'Come up now, and see your papa's bedroom.He's sleeping upstairs in yours, that everything may be done up afresh in his.' Molly could just remember, in faint clear lines of distinctness, the being taken into this very room to bid farewell to her dying mother.She could see the white linen, the white muslin, surrounding the pale, wan wistful face, with the large, longing eyes, yearning for one more touch of the little soft warm child, whom she was too feeble to clasp in her arms, already growing numb in death.Many a time when Molly had been in this room since that sad day, had she seen in vivid fancy that same wan wistful face lying on the pillow, the outline of the form beneath the clothes; and the girl had not shrunk from such visions, but rather cherished them, as preserving to her the remembrance of her mother's outward semblance.Her eyes were full of tears, as she followed Miss Browning into this room to see it under its new aspect.Nearly everything was changed - the position of the bed and the colour of the furniture; there was a grand toilette -table now, with a glass upon it, instead of the primitive substitute of the top of a chest of drawers, with a mirror above upon the wall, sloping downwards;these latter things had served her mother during her short married life.'You see we must have all in order for a lady who has passed so much of her time in the countess's mansion,' said Miss Browning, who was now quite reconciled to the marriage, thanks to the pleasant employment of furnishing that had devolved upon her in consequence.'Cromer, the upholsterer, wanted to persuade me to have a sofa and a writing-table.These men will say anything is the fashion, if they want to sell an article.I said, "No, no, Cromer:
第70章 MOLLY GIBSONS NEW FRIENDS (2)（2 / 3）