 noble!'
'And what do you think about Laura?'
'Poor child! I doubt if it was well to allow so much intimacy; yet I don't see how it could have been helped.'
'So you think she is in for it? I hope not; but she has not been herself of late.'
'I think she misses what she has been used to from him, and thinks him estranged, but I trust it goes no further. I see she is out of spirits; I wish I could help her, dear girl, but the worst of all would be to let her guess the real name and meaning of all this, so I can't venture to say a word.'
'She is very innocent of novels,' said Charles, 'and that is well. It would be an unlucky business to have our poor beauty either sitting 'like Patience on a monument', or 'cockit up on a baggage-waggon.' But that will never be. Philip is not the man to have a wife in barracks. He would have her like his books, in morocco, or not at all.'
'He would never involve her in discomforts. He may be entirely trusted, and as long as he goes on as he has begun, there is no harm done; Laura will cheer up, will only consider him as her cousin and friend, and never know he has felt more for her.'
'Her going to Ireland is very fortunate.'
'It has made me still more glad that the plan should take place at once.'
'And you say "nothing to nobody"?'
'Of course not. We must not let him guess we have observed anything; there is no need to make your father uncomfortable, and such things need not dawn on Amy's imagination.'
It may be wondered at that Mrs. Edmonstone should confide such a subject to her son, but she knew that in a case really affecting his sister, and thus introduced, his silence was secure. In fact, confidence was the only way to prevent the shrewd, unscrupulous raillery which would have caused great distress, and perhaps led to the very disclosure to be deprecated. Of late, too, there had been such a decrease of petulance in Charles, as justified her in trusting him, and lastly, it must be observed that she was one of those open-hearted people who cannot make a discovery nor endure an anxiety without imparting it. Her tact, indeed, led her to make
