ence is the parent of vice, you know.'

Philip smiled just as much as the occasion required, and answered, 'I
beg your pardon, I had forgotten my duty. I'll attend to my business
better in future.' And turning to a small, shy damsel, who seldom met
with a partner, he asked her to dance. Eveleen came back to Laura with
a droll disappointed gesture. 'Insult to injury,' said she,
disconsolately.

'Of course,' said Amy, 'he could not have thought you wanted to dance
with him, or you would not have gone to stir him up.'

'Well, then, he was very obtuse.'

'Besides, you are engaged.'

'O yes, to Mr. Thorndale! But who would be content with the squire when
the knight disdains her?'

Mr. Thorndale came to claim Eveleen at that moment. It was the second
time she had danced with him, and it did not pass unobserved by Philip,
nor the long walk up and down after the dance was over. At length his
friend came up to him and said something warm in admiration of her.
'She is very Irish,' was Philip's answer, with a cold smile, and Mr.
Thorndale stood uncomfortable under the disapprobation, attracted by
Eveleen's beauty and grace, yet so unused to trust his own judgment
apart from 'Morville's,' as to be in an instant doubtful whether he
really admired or not.

'You have not been dancing with her?' he said, presently.

'No: she attracts too many to need the attention of a nobody like
myself.'

That 'too many,' seeming to confound him with the vulgar herd, made Mr.
Thorndale heartily ashamed of having been pleased with her.

Philip was easy about him for the present, satisfied that admiration had
been checked, which, if it had been allowed to grow into an attachment,
would have been very undesirable.

The suspicions Charles had excited were so full in Philip's mind,
however, that he could not as easily set it at rest respecting his
cousin. Guy had three times asked her to dance, but each time she had
been engaged. At last, just as the clock struck the hour at which the
carriage had been ordered, he came up, and impetuously claimed her. 'One
quadrille we must have, Laura, if you are not tired?'

'No! Oh, no! I could dance till this time to-morrow.'

'We ought to be going,' said Mrs. Edmonstone.

'O pray, Mrs. Edmonstone, this one more,' cried Guy, eagerly. 'Laura
owes me this one.'

'Yes, this one more, mamma,' said Laura, and they went off together,
while Philip remained, in a reverie, till requested by his aunt to see