 that time you may have recovered yourself, and be able to give the explanation which I require.'
She went into her own room, and waited, with her eyes on her watch, a prey to every strange alarm and anticipation, grievously hurt at this want of confidence, and wounded, where she least expected it, by both daughter and nephew. She thought, guessed, recollected, wondered, tormented herself, and at the last of the thirty minutes, hastily opened the door into the dressing-room. Laura sat as before, crouched up in the corner of the wide sofa; and when she raised her face, at her mother's entrance, it was bewildered rather than embarrassed.
'Well, Laura?' She waited unanswered; and the wretchedness of the look so touched her, that, kissing her, she said, 'Surely, my dear, you need not be afraid to tell me anything?'
Laura did not respond to the kindness, but asked, looking perplexed, 'What have I said? Have I told it?'
'What you have given me reason to believe,' said Mrs. Edmonstone, trying to bring herself to speak it explicitly, 'that you think Philip is attached to you. You do not deny it. Let me know on what terms you stand.'
Without looking up, she murmured, 'If you would not force it from me at such a time.'
'Laura, it is for your own good. You are wretched now, my poor child; why not relieve yourself by telling all? If you have not acted openly, can you have any comfort till you have confessed? It may be a painful effort, but relief will come afterwards.'
'I have nothing to confess,' said Laura. 'There is no such thing as you think.'
'No engagement?'
'No.'
'Then what am I to understand by your exclamations?'
'It is no engagement,' repeated Laura. 'He would never have asked that without papa's consent. We are only bound by our own hearts.'
'And you have a secret understanding with him?'
'We have never written to each other; we have never dreamed of any intercourse that could be called clandestine. He would scorn it. He waited only for his promotion to declare it to papa.'
'And how long has it been declared to you?'
'Ever since the first summer Guy was here.'
'Three years!' exclaimed her mother. 'You have
