would not have produced half the amount of fatigue, according to Mrs Gibson's judgment apparently, and if Cynthia had been quite well, very probably she would have hit the blot in her mother's speech with one of her touches of sarcasm.Then, again, when Cynthia did not rally, Mrs Gibson grew impatient, and accused her of being fanciful and lazy; at length, and partly at Molly's instance, there came an appeal to Mr Gibson, and a professional examination of the supposed invalid, which Cynthia hated more than anything, especially when the verdict was, that there was nothing very much the matter, only a general lowness of tone, and depression of health and spirits, which would soon be remedied by tonics, and, meanwhile, she was not to be urged to exertion.'If there is one thing I dislike,' said Cynthia to Mr Gibson, after he had pronounced tonics to be the cure for her present state, 'it is the way doctors have of giving tablespoonfuls of nauseous mixtures as a certain remedy for sorrows and cares.' She laughed up in his face as she spoke;she had always a pretty word and smile for him, even in the midst of her loss of spirits.'Come! you acknowledge you have "sorrows" by that speech; we'll make a bargain: if you'll tell me your sorrows and cares, I'll try and find some other remedy for them than giving you what you are pleased to term my nauseous mixtures.' 'No,' said Cynthia, colouring; 'I never said I had sorrows and cares; Ispoke generally.What should I have a sorrow about - you and Molly are only too kind to me,' her eyes filling with tears.'Well, well, we'll not talk of such gloomy things, and you shall have some sweet emulsion to disguise the taste of the bitters I shall be obliged to fall back upon.' 'Please, don't.If you but knew how I dislike emulsions and disguises!
I do want bitters - and if I sometimes - if I'm obliged to - if I'm not truthful myself, I do like truth in others - at least, sometimes.' She ended her sentence with another smile, bus it was rather faint and watery.Now the first person out of the house to notice Cynthia's change of look and manner was Roger Hamley - and yet he did not see her until, under the influence of the nauseous mixture, she was beginning to recover.But his eyes were scarcely off her during the first five minutes he was in the room.All the time he was trying to talk to Mrs Gibson in reply to her civil platitudes, he was studying Cynthia; and at the first convenient pause he came and stood before Molly, so as to interpose his person between her and the rest of the room; for some visitors had come in subsequent to his entrance.'Molly, how ill your sister is looking! What is it? Has she had advice?
You must forgive me, but so often those who live together in the same house don't observe the first approaches of illness.' Now Molly's love for Cynthia was fast and unwavering, but if anything tried it, it was the habit Roger had fallen into of always calling Cynthia Molly's sister in speaking to the latter.From any one else it would have been a matter of indifference to her, and hardly to be noticed; it vexed both ear and heart when Roger used the expression; and there was a curtness of manner as well as of words in her reply.'Oh! she was over-tired by the ball.Papa has seen her, and says she will be all right very soon.' 'I wonder if she wants change of air?' said Roger, meditatively.'I wish - I do wish we could have her at the Hall; you and your mother too, of course.But I don't see how it would be possible - or else how charming it would be!' Molly felt as if a visit to the Hall under such circumstances would be altogether so different an affair to all her former ones, that she could hardly tell if she should like it or not.Roger went on, - 'You got our flowers in time, did you not? Ah! you don't know how often I thought of you that evening! And you enjoyed it too, didn't you? - you had plenty of agreeable partners, and all that makes a first ball delightful?