One day, to Molly's infinite surprise, Mr. Preston was announced as a caller. Mrs. Gibson and she were sitting together in the drawing-room; Cynthia was out—gone into the town a-shopping—when the door was opened, the name given, and in walked the young man. His entrance seemed to cause more confusion than Molly could well account for. He came in with the same air of easy assurance with which he had received her and her father at Ashcombe Manor-house. He looked remarkably handsome in his riding-dress, and with the open-air exercise he had just had. But Mrs. Gibson's smooth brows contracted a little at the sight of him, and her reception...