Poor  child  !  it  is  true  she  had  lost  her  mother,  which
was  a  jar  to  the  whole  tenour  of  her  life.  .  .  .  The
pleasure  she  was  looking  forward  to  to-day  was  her
first  share  in  a  kind  of  annual  festival  in  Hollingford."

This  annual  festival  was  the  garden-party  given  by
Lady  Egerton  of  Tatton  to  the  ladies  of  Knutsford,
who  helped  her  with  her  charity  school,  which  was
close  by  Tatton  Park  gates.  The  novelist's  reference
to  "  the  poor  child  who  had  lost  her  mother  "  gives
her  an  interest  in  Molly  Gibson  when  hearing  that
she  is  to  have  a  stepmother.  "  Sobbing  till  she  was
wearied  out.  .  .  .  she  had  cast  herself  on  the  ground —
that  natural  throne  for  violent  sorrow — and  leant  up
against  the  old  moss-grown  seat ;  sometimes  bury-
ing her  face  in  her  hands  ;  sometimes  clasping  them
together,  as  if  by  the  tight,  painful  grasp  of  her  fingers
she  could  deaden  mental  suffering."

On  the  first  floor  is  the  large  drawing-room,  with  its
old-fashioned  bow-window  of  bent  glass  overlooking
the  garden,  where  the  flower-beds  are  designed  exactly
as  they  were  when  Mrs.  GaskeU  visited  her  cousins
nearly  sixty  years  ago.  It  was  in  that  drawing-room
that  the  worldly-wise  Mrs.  Gibson  welcomed  the
squire's  sons,  taking  care  to  give  the  preference  to  the
elder.  There  Cynthia  thanked  Osborne  Hamley  for
the  bouquet  of  flowers.  "  '  Oh,  you  must  not  thank
me  exclusively  ;    I  believe  it  was  my  thought,  but


CHURCH   HOUSE  61

Roger  took  all  the  trouble  of  it.'  'I  consider  the
thought  as  everything/  said  Mrs.  Gibson  ;  '  thought
is  spiritual,  while  action  is  merely  material.'  This
fine  sentence  took  the  speaker  herself  by  surprise."

On  the  ground  floor  is  the  dining-room  where  Doctor
Holland's  medical  pupils  used  to  dine  with  him  and  his
daughters.
