pecting to be
able to go to balls, and spend a summer of gaiety, while he studied as
much as at Oxford.

Thursday morning was all that heart could wish, the air cooled by the
thunder, and the clouds looking as if raining was foreign to their
nature. Mr. and Mrs. Edmonstone, their daughters, and Lady Eveleen,
were packed inside and outside the great carriage, while Guy, carefully
settling Charles in the low phaeton, putting in all that any one
recommended, from an air-cushion to an umbrella, flourished his whip,
and drove off with an air of exultation and delight.

Everything went off to admiration. No one was more amused than Charles.
The scene was so perfectly new and delightful to one accustomed to such
a monotonous life, that the very sight of people was a novelty. Nowhere
was there so much laughing and talking as in that little carriage, and
whenever Mrs. Edmonstone's anxious eye fell upon it, she always saw
Charles sitting upright, with a face so full of eager interest as to
banish all thought of fatigue. Happy, indeed, he was. He enjoyed the
surprise of his acquaintance at meeting him; he enjoyed Dr. Mayerne's
laugh and congratulation; he enjoyed seeing how foolish Philip thought
him, nodding to his mother and sisters, laughing at the dreadful faces
Guy could not help making at any particularly discordant note of the
offensive bugle; and his capabilities rising with his spirits, he did
all that the others did, walked further than he had done for years, was
lifted up steps without knowing how, sat out the whole breakfast, talked
to all the world, and well earned the being thoroughly tired, as he
certainly was when Guy put him into the carriage and drove him home, and
still more so when Guy all but carried him up stairs, and laid him on
the sofa in the dressing-room.

However, his mother announced that it would have been so unnatural if
he had not been fatigued, that she should have been more anxious, and
leaving him to repose, they all, except Mr. Edmonstone, who had stayed
to dine at the mess, sat down to dinner.

Amy came down dressed just as the carriage had been announced, and found
Laura and Eveleen standing by the table, arranging their bouquets, while
Guy, in the dark, behind the piano, was playing--not, as usual, in such
cases, the Harmonious Blacksmith, but a chant.

'Is mamma ready?' asked Laura.

'Nearly,' said Amy, 'but I wish she was not obliged to go! I am sure she
cannot bear to leave Charlie.