id Guy.

'Thank you, but I am not ready yet; besides, I am an actual log now, and
am carried as such, so it is of no use to wait for me. Mamma shall have
the first turn, and I won't even leave my door open.'

'Yes, yes, yes; go and have it out with mamma, next best to Amy herself,
as she is run away--eh, Guy?' said Mr. Edmonstone.

Guy and Mrs. Edmonstone had not hitherto trusted themselves to speak
to each other, but they looked and smiled; then, wishing the rest good
night, they disappeared. Then there was a simultaneous outbreak of
'Well?'

'All right!' said Mr. Edmonstone. 'Every word was untrue. He is the
noblest fellow in the world, as I knew all the time, and I was an old
fool for listening to a pack of stories against him.'

'Hurrah!' cried Charles, drumming on the back of his sofa. 'Let us hear
how the truth came out, and what it was.'

'It was that Dixon. There has he been helping that man for ever, sending
his child to school, giving him sums upon sums, paying his gaming debts
with that cheque!'

'Oh, oh!' cried Charles.

'Yes that was it! The child told Markham of it, and Markham brought
the father to tell me. It puts me in a rage to think of the monstrous
stories Philip has made me believe!'

'I was sure of it!' cried Charles. 'I knew it would come out that he had
only been so much better than other people that nobody could believe it.
Cleared! cleared! Why, Charlotte, Mr. Ready-to-halt will be for footing
it cleverly enough!' as she was wildly curvetting round him.

'I was always sure,' said Mr. Edmonstone. 'I knew it was not in him to
go wrong. It was only Philip, who would persuade me black was white.'

'I never believed one word of it,' said Charles; 'still less after I saw
Philip's animosity.'

'"Les absens ont toujours tort,"' interrupted Laura; then, afraid of
saying too much, she added,--'Come, Charlotte, it is very late.'

'And I shall be the first to tell Amy!' cried Charlotte. 'Good night,
papa!--good night, Charlie!'

She rushed up-stairs, afraid of being forestalled. Laura lingered,
putting some books away in the ante-room, trying to overcome the weary
pain at her heart. She did not know how to be confident. Her father's
judgment was worthless in her eyes, and Philip had predicted that Amy
would be sacrificed after all. To see them happy made her sigh at the
distance of her own hopes, and worse than all was self-reproach
for unkindness in not rejoicing with the rest, in spite o