ion; and still holding her hand, he roused himself to
listen, and answer gaily to Eveleen's description of the tutor, Mr.
Fielder, 'a thorough gentleman, very clever and agreeable, who had read
all the books in the world; the ugliest, yes, without exaggeration, the
most quaintly ugly man living,--little, and looking just as if he was
made of gutta percha, Eveleen said, 'always moving by jerks,--so Maurice
advised the boys not to put him near the fire, lest he should melt.'

'Only when he gives them some formidable lesson, and they want to
melt his heart,' said Charles, talking at random, in hopes of saying
something laughable.

'Then his eyes--'tis not exactly a squint, but a cast there is, and one
set of eyelashes are black and the other light, and that gives him just
the air of a little frightful terrier of Maurice's named Venus, with a
black spot over one eye. The boys never call him anything but Venus.'

'And you encourage them in respect for their tutor?'

'Oh, he holds his own at lessons, I trow; but he pretends to have such
a horror of us wild Irish, and to wonder not to find us eating potatoes
with our fingers, and that I don't wear a petticoat over my head instead
of a bonnet, in what he calls the classical Carthaginian Celto-Hibernian
fashion.'

'Dear me,' said Charlotte, 'no wonder Philip recommended him.'

'O, I assure you he has the gift, no one else but Captain Morville talks
near as well.'

So talked on Eveleen, and Charles answered her as much in her own
fashion as he could, and when at last the evening came to an end, every
one felt relieved.

Laura lingered long in Amy's room, perceiving that hitherto she had
known only half the value of her sister her sweet sister. It would
be worse than ever now, when left with the others, all so much less
sympathizing, all saying sharp things of Philip, none to cling to her
with those winsome ways that had been unnoted till the time when they
were no more to console her, and she felt them to have been the only
charm that had softened her late dreary desolation.

So full was her heart, that she must have told Amy all her grief but for
the part that Philip had acted towards Guy, and her doubts of Guy would
not allow her the consolation of dwelling on Amy's happiness, which
cheered the rest. She could only hang about her in speechless grief, and
caress her fondly, while Amy cried, and tried to comfort her, till her
mother came to wish her good night.

Mrs.