THE

CORNHILL MAGAZINE.

OCTOBER, 1865.

lives and Daughters.

AN EVERY-DAY STORY.

CHAPTER XLVI.

HOLLINGFORD GOSSIPS.

Y dear Molly, why didn't you come and dine with us? I said to sister I would come and scold you well. Oh, Mr. Osborne Hamley, is that you?" and a look of mistaken intelligence at the tête-à-tête she had disturbed came so perceptibly over Miss Phoebe's face that Molly caught Osborne's sympathetic eye, and both smiled at the notion.

"I'm sure I-well! one must sometimes-I see our dinner would have been-" Then she recovered herself into a connected sentence. "We only just heard of Mrs. Gibson's having a fly from the George,' because sister sent our Betty to pay for a couple of rabbits Tom Ostler had snared, (I hope we shan't be taken up for poachers, Mr. Osborne

snaring doesn't require a licence, I believe?) and she heard he was gone off with the fly to the Towers with your dear mamma; for Coxe who drives the fly in general has sprained his ankle. We had just finished dinner, but when Betty said Tom Ostler would not be back till night I said, 'Why, there's that poor dear girl left all alone by herself, and her

VOL. XII.-No. 70.

19.