shrinking from Philip.

Laura had once pleaded hard and earnestly for Guy with Philip, but
all in vain; she was only taught to think the case more hopeless than
before. Laura was a very kind nurse and sister, but she could better be
spared than her mother and Amy, so that it generally fell to her lot to
be down-stairs, making the drawing-room habitable. Dr. Mayerne, whenever
Charles was ill, used to be more at Hollywell than at his own house, and
there were few days that he did not dine there. When Amy was out of the
way, Philip used to entertain them with long accounts of Redclyffe, how
fine a place it was, how far the estate reached on the Moorworth road,
of its capacities for improvement, wastes of moorland to be enclosed or
planted, magnificent timber needing nothing but thinning. He spoke of
the number of tenantry, and the manorial rights, and the influence in
both town and county, which, in years gone by, had been proved to the
utmost in many a fierce struggle with the house of Thorndale. Sir Guy
Morville might be one of the first men in England if he were not wanting
to himself. Mr. Edmonstone enjoyed such talk, for it made him revel in
the sense of his own magnanimity in refusing his daughter to the owner
of all this; and Laura sometimes thought how Philip would have graced
such a position, yet how much greater it was to rest entirely on his own
merits.

'Ah, my fine fellow!' muttered Dr. Mayerne to himself one day, when
Philip and his uncle had left the room, just after a discourse of this
kind, 'I see you have not forgotten you are the next heir.'

Laura coloured with indignation, exclaimed, 'Oh!' then checked
herself, as if such an aspersion was not worthy of her taking the
trouble to refute it.

'Ah! Miss Edmonstone, I did not know you were there.'

'Yes, you were talking to yourself, just as if you were at home,' said
Charlotte, who was specially pert to the old doctor, because she knew
herself to be a great pet. 'You were telling some home truths to make
Laura angry.'

'Well, he would make a very good use of it if he had it,' said the
doctor.

'Now you'll make me angry,' said Charlotte; 'and you have not mended
matters with Laura. She thinks nothing short of four-syllabled words
good enough for Philip.'

'Hush! nonsense, Charlotte!' said Laura, much annoyed.

'There Charlotte, she is avenging herself on you because she can't scold
me' said the doctor, pretending to whisper.

'Charlotte is onl