'Don't, don't, I beg,' said Mr. Edmonstone, with what was meant for
dignity. 'Lie still; you had much better. My stars! how ill you look!'
he exclaimed, startled by Philip's altered face and figure. 'You have
had a sharpish touch; but you are better, eh?'

'Yes, thank you.'

'Well; I thought I had better come and speak to you, if you felt up to
it. Here is--here is--I hope it is all right and legal; but that you
can tell better than I; and you are concerned in it anyhow. Here is poor
Guy's will, which we thought you had better look over, if you liked, and
felt equal, eh?'

'Thank you,' said Philip, holding out his hand; but Mr. Edmonstone
withheld it, trying his patience by an endless quantity of discursive
half-sentences, apparently without connection with each other, about
disappointment, and hopes, and being sorry, and prospects, and its
'being an unpleasant thing,' and 'best not raise his expectations:'
during all which time Philip, expecting to hear of Laura, and his heart
beating so fast as to renew the sensation of faintness, waited in vain,
and strove to gather the meaning, and find out whether he was forgiven,
almost doubting whether the confusion was in his own mind or in
his uncle's words. However, at last the meaning bolted out in one
comprehensive sentence, when Mr. Edmonstone thought he had sufficiently
prepared him for his disappointment,--'Poor Amy is to be confined in the
spring.'

There Mr. Edmonstone stopped short, very much afraid of the effect;
but Philip raised himself, his face brightened, as if he was greatly
relieved, and from his heart he exclaimed, 'Thank Heaven!'

'That's right! that is very well said!' answered Mr. Edmonstone, very
much pleased. 'It would be a pity it should go out of the old line after
all; and it's a very generous thing in you to say so.'

'Oh no!' said Philip, shrinking into himself at even such praise as
this.

'Well, well,' said his uncle, 'you will see he has thought of you, be it
how it may. There! I only hope it is right; though it does seem rather
queer, appointing poor little Amy executor rather than me. If I had but
been here in time! But 'twas Heaven's will; and so--It does not signify,
after all, if it is not quite formal. We understand each other.'

The will was on a sheet of letter-paper, in Arnaud's stiff French
handwriting; it was witnessed by the two Mr. Morrises, and signed on
the 27th of September, in very frail and feeble characters. Amabel an