ts,--singing, reading, gardening, walking as of
old, and that intercourse with each other that was so much more than
ever before.

It was more, but it was not quite the same; for Guy was a very
chivalrous lover; the polish and courtesy that sat so well on his frank,
truthful manners, were even more remarkable in his courtship. His
ways with Amy had less of easy familiarity than in the time of their
brother-and-sister-like intimacy, so that a stranger might have imagined
her wooed, not won. It was as if he hardly dared to believe that she
could really be his own, and treated her with a sort of reverential love
and gentleness, while she looked up to him with ever-increasing honour.
She was better able to understand him now than in her more childish days
last summer; and she did not merely see, as before, that she was looking
at the upper surface of a mystery. He had, at the same time, grown in
character, his excitability and over-sensitiveness seemed to have been
smoothed away, and to have given place to a calmness of tone, that was
by no means impassibility.

When alone with Amy, he was generally very grave, often silent and
meditative, or else their talk was deep and serious; and even with the
family he was less merry and more thoughtful than of old, though very
bright and animated, and showing full, free affection to them all, as
entirely accepted and owned as one of them.

So, indeed, he was. Mr. Edmonstone, with his intense delight in lovers,
patronized them, and made commonplace jokes, which they soon learnt
to bear without much discomposure. Mrs. Edmonstone was all that her
constant appellation of 'mamma' betokened, delighting in Guy's having
learnt to call her so. Charles enjoyed the restoration of his friend,
the sight of Amy's happiness, and the victory over Philip, and was
growing better every day. Charlotte was supremely happy, watching the
first love affair ever conducted in her sight, and little less so in the
return of Bustle, who resumed his old habits as regularly as if he had
only left Hollywell yesterday.

Laura alone was unhappy. She did not understand her own feelings; but
sad at heart she was; with only one who could sympathize with her, and
he far away, and the current of feeling setting against him. She could
not conceal her depression, and was obliged to allow it to be attributed
to the grief that one sister must feel in parting with another; and as
her compassion for her little Amy, coupled w