'Mr. Edmonstone would be a very unreasonable guardian, indeed, to be displeased,' said his friend, smiling. You say you stopped the purchase of the horse. Why so? Could you not keep him till you are more sure of yourself?'
'Do you think I might?' joyously exclaimed Guy. 'I'll write to Philip this minute by the post. Such a splendid creature: it would do you good to see it--such action--such a neck--such spirit. It would be a shame not to secure it. But no--no--' and he checked himself sorrowfully. 'I have made my mind before that I don't deserve it. If it was here, it would always have to be tried: if I heard the hounds I don't know I should keep from riding after them; whereas, now I can't, for William won't let me take Deloraine. No, I can't trust myself to keep such a horse, and not hunt. It will serve me right to see Mr. Brownlow on it, and he will never miss such a chance!' and the depth of his sigh bore witness to the struggle it cost him.
'I should not like to use anyone as you use yourself,' said Mrs. Edmonstone, looking at him with affectionate anxiety, which seemed suddenly to change the current of his thought, for he exclaimed abruptly--'Mrs. Edmonstone, can you tell me anything about my mother?'
'I am afraid not,' said she, kindly; 'you know we had so little intercourse with your family, that I heard little but the bare facts.'
'I don't think,' said Guy, leaning on the chimneypiece, 'that I ever thought much about her till I knew you, but lately I have fancied a great deal about what might have been if she had but lived.'
It was not Mrs. Edmonstone's way to say half what she felt, and she went on--'Poor thing! I believe she was quite a child.'
'Only seventeen when she died,' said Guy.
Mrs. Edmonstone went to a drawer, took out two or three bundles of old letters, and after searching in them by the fire-light, said--'Ah! here's a little about her; it is in a letter from my sister-in-law, Philip's mother, when they were staying at Stylehurst.'
'Who? My father and mother?' cried Guy eagerly.
'Did you not know they had been there three or four days?'
'No--I know less about them than anybody,' said he, sadly: but as Mrs. Edmonstone waited, doubtful as to whether she might be about to make disclosures for which he was unprepared, he added, hastily--'I do know the main facts of the story; I was told them last autumn;' and an expression denoting the remembrance of great suffering came over his face; then, pausing a moment, he said--'I knew Archdeacon Morville had been very kind.'