know you so well, we should almost accuse
you of affectation.'

'Then I shall go away,' said Guy, laughing as he rose. 'Can you come
out with me?' said he, in a lower tone, leaning over the back of Amy's
chair.

'No; wait a bit,' interposed Mr. Edmonstone; 'don't take her out, or
you won't be to be found, anywhere, and I want to speak to you before
I write my letter, and go to the Union Meeting. I want to tell Master
Philip, on the spot, that the day is fixed, and we snap our fingers at
him and his probation. Wait till twenty-five! I dare say!'

At 'I want to speak to you,' the ladies had made the first move towards
departure, but they were not out of hearing at the conclusion. Guy
looked after Amy, but she would not look round, and Charles lay twisting
Bustle's curls round his fingers, and smiling to himself at the manner
in which the letter was working by contraries. The overthrow of Philip's
influence was a great triumph for him, apart from the way in which it
affected his friend and his sister.

Mr. Edmonstone was disappointed that Guy would not set about fixing the
day, in time for him to announce it in a letter to be written in the
course of an hour. Guy said he had not begun on the subject with Amy,
and it would never do to hurry her. Indeed, it was a new light to
himself that Mr. Edmonstone would like it to take place so soon.

'Pray, when did you think it was to be?' said Mr. Edmonstone. 'Upon my
word, I never in all my days saw a lover like you, Guy!'

'I was too happy to think about the future; besides, I did not know
whether you had sufficient confidence in me.'

'Confidence, nonsense! I tell you if I had a dozen daughters, I would
trust them all to you.'

Guy smiled, and was infected by Charles's burst of laughing, but Mr.
Edmonstone went on unheeding--'I have the most absolute confidence
in you! I am going to write to Philip this minute, to tell him he has
played three-tailed Bashaw rather too long. I shall tell him it is to
be very soon, at any rate; and that if he wishes to see how I value his
pragmatical advice, he may come and dance at the wedding. I declare,
your mamma and that colonel of his have perfectly spoilt him with their
flattery! I knew what would come of it; you all would make a prodigy of
him, till he is so puffed up, that he entirely forgets who he is!'

'Not I' said Charles; 'that can't be laid to my door.'

'But I'll write him such a letter this instant as shall make him
rem