Chapter XI…

Chapter XI

Traits of Character

The following morning, Mrs. Mittin came with eager intelligence, that the raffle was fixed for one o'clock; and, without any scruple, accompanied the party to the shop, addressing herself to every one of the set as to a confirmed and intimate friend. But her chief supporter was Mr. Dennel, whose praise of her was the vehicle to his censure of his sister-in-law. That lady was the person in the world whom he most feared and disliked. He had neither spirit for the splendid manner in which she lived, nor parts for the vivacity of her conversation. The first, his love of money made him condemn as extravagant, and the latter his self-love made him hate, because he could not understand. He persuaded himself, therefore, that she had more words than meaning; and extolled all the obvious truths uttered by Mrs. Mittin, to shew his superior admiration of what, being plain and incontrovertible, he dignified with the panegyric of being sensible.

When they came upon the Pantiles, they were accosted by Mr. Dubster; who having solemnly asked them, one by one, how they all did, joined Mrs. Mittin, saying: 'Well, I can't pretend as I'm over sorry you've got neither of those two comical gentlemen with you, that behaved so free to me for nothing. I don't think it's particular agreeable being treated so; though it's a thing I don't much mind. It's not worth fretting about.'

'Well, don't say any more about it,' cried Mrs. Mittin, endeavouring to shake him off; 'I dare say you did something to provoke 'em, or they're too genteel to have taken notice of you.'

'Me provoke them! why what did I do? I was just like a mere lamb, as one may say, at the very time that young Captain fell abusing me so, calling of me a little dirty fellow, without no provocation. If I'm little, or big, I don't see that it's any business of his. And as to dirty, I'd put on all clean linen but the very day before, as the people can tell you at the inn; so the whole was a mere piece of falsehood from one end to t'other.'

'Well, well, what do you talk about it for any more? You should never take anything ill of a young gentleman. It's only aggravating him so much the worse.'

'Aggravating him, Mrs. Mittin! why what need I mind that? Do you think I'm to put up with his talking of caning me, and such like, because of his being a young gentleman? Not I, I assure you! I'm no such person. And if once I feel his switch across these here shoulders, it won't be so well for him!'

The party now entered the shop where the raffle was to be held.

Edgar was already there; he had no power to keep away from any place where he was sure to behold Camilla; and a raffle brought to his mind the most tender recollections. He was now with Lord O'Lerney, in whose candour and benevolence of character he took great delight, and with whom he had joined Lady Isabella Irby, who had been drawn, as a quiet spectatress, to the sight, by a friend, who, having never seen the humours of a raffle, had entreated, through her means, to look on. He languished to see Camilla presented to this lady, in whose manners and conversation, dignity and simplicity were equally blended.

While he was yet, though absently, conversing with them, Lord O'Lerney pointed out Camilla to Lady Isabella.

'I have taken notice of her already at the Rooms;' answered her Ladyship; 'and I have seldom, I think, seen a more interesting young creature.'

'The character of her countenance,' said Lord O'Lerney, 'strikes me very peculiarly. 'Tis so intelligent, yet so unhackneyed, so full of meaning, yet so artless, that, while I look at her, I feel myself involuntarily anxious for her welfare.'

'I don't think she seems happy,' said Lady Isabella; 'Do you know who she is, my Lord?'

Edgar, here, with difficulty suppressed a sigh. Not happy! thought he; ah! wherefore? what can make Camilla unhappy?

'I understand she is a niece of Sir Hugh Tyrold,' answered his Lordship; 'a Yorkshire Baronet. She is here with an acquaintance of mine, Mrs. Arlbery, who is one of the first women I have ever known, for wit and capacity. She has an excellent heart, too; though her extraordinary talents, and her carelessness of opinion make it sometimes, but very unjustly, doubted.'

Edgar heard this with much pleasure. A good word from Lord O'Lerney quieted many fears; he hoped he had been unnecessarily alarmed; he determined, in future, to judge her more favourably.

'I should be glad,' continued his Lordship, 'to hear this young lady were either well established, or returned to her friends without becoming an object of public notice. A young woman is no where so rarely respectable, or respected, as at these water-drinking places, if seen at them either long or often. The search of pleasure and dissipation, at a spot consecrated for restoring health to the sick, the infirm, and the suffering, carries with it an air of egotism, that does not give the most pleasant idea of the feeling and disposition.'

'Yet, may not the sick, my Lord, be rather amended than hurt by the sight of gaiety around them?'

'Yes, my dear Lady Isabella; and the effect, therefore, I believe to be beneficial. But as this is not the motive why the young and the gay seek these spots, it is not here they will find themselves most honoured. And the mixture of pain and illness with splendor and festivity, is so unnatural, that probably it is to that we must attribute that a young woman is no where so hardly judged. If she is without fortune, she is thought a female adventurer, seeking to sell herself for its attainment; if she is rich, she is supposed a willing dupe, ready for a snare, and only looking about for an ensnarer.'

'And yet, young women seldom, I believe, my Lord, merit this severity of judgment. They come but hither in the summer, as they go to London in the winter, simply in search of amusement, without any particular purpose.'

'True; but they do not weigh what their observers weigh for them, that the search of public recreation in the winter is, from long habit, permitted without censure; but that the summer has not, as yet, prescription so positively in its favour; and those who, after meeting them all the winter at the opera, and all the spring at Ranelagh, hear of them all the summer at Cheltenham, Tunbridge, &c. and all the autumn at Bath, are apt to inquire, when is the season for home.'

'Ah, my Lord! how wide are the poor inconsiderate little flutterers from being aware of such a question! How necessary to youth and thoughtlessness is the wisdom of experience!'

Why does she not come this way? thought Edgar; why does she not gather from these mild, yet understanding moralists, instruction that might benefit all her future life?

'There is nothing,' said Lord O'Lerney, 'I more sincerely pity than the delusions surrounding young females. The strongest admirers of their eyes are frequently the most austere satirists of their conduct.'

The entrance of Lord Newford, Sir Theophilus Jarard, and Sir Sedley Clarendel, all noisily talking and laughing together, interrupted any further conversation. The two former no sooner saw Camilla, and perceived neither Lady Alithea Selmore, nor Mrs. Berlinton, than they made up to her; and Sir Sedley, who now found she was completely established in the bon ton, felt something of pride mix with pleasure in publicly availing himself of his intimacy with her; and something like interest mix with curiosity, in examining if Edgar were struck with her ready attention to him.

Upon Edgar, however, it made not the slightest impression. While Sir Sedley had appeared to him a mere fop, he had thought it degraded her; but how he regarded him as her preserver, it seemed both natural and merited.

Sir Sedley, not aware of this reasoning, was somewhat piqued; and taking him to another part of the shop, whispered: 'I am horribly vapoured! Do you know I have some thoughts of trying that little girl? Do you think one could make anything of her?'

'How? what do you mean?' cried Edgar, with sudden alarm.

Sir Sedley, a little flattered, affectedly answered: 'O, if you have any serious designs that way, incontestably I won't interfere.'

'Me!' cried Edgar, surprised and offended; 'believe me, no! I have all my life considered her--as my sister.'

Sir Sedley saw this was spoken with effort; and negligently replied: 'Nay you are just at the first epocha for marrying from inclination; but you are in the right not to perform so soon the funeral honours of liberty. 'Tis what you may do at any time. So many girls want establishments, that a man of sixty can just as easily get a wife of eighteen, as a man of one-and-twenty. The only inconvenience in that sort of alliance is, that though she begins with submitting to her venerated husband as prettily as to her papa, she is terribly apt to have a knack of running away from him, afterwards, with equal facility.'

'That is rather a discouraging article, I confess,' cried Edgar, 'for the tardy votaries of Hymen!'

'O, no! 'tis no great matter!' answered he, patting his snuffbox; 'we are impenetrable in the extreme to those sort of grievances now-a-days. We are at such prodigious expence of sensibility in public, for tales of sorrow told about pathetically, at a full board, that if we suffered much for our private concerns to boot, we must always meet one another with tears in our eyes. We never weep now, but at dinner, or at some diversion.'

Lord Newford, pulling him by the arm, called out: 'Come, Clary, what art about, man? we want thee.'

'Come, Clary! don't shirk, Clary,' cried Sir Theophilus; 'I can't possibly patronise this shirking.' And they hauled him to a corner of the shop, where all three resumed their customary laughing whispers.

'You will not, perhaps, suspect, Lady Isabella,' said Lord O'Lerney, smiling, 'that one of that triumvirate is by no means deficient in parts, and can even, when he desires it, be extremely pleasing?'

'Your Lordship judges right, I confess! I had not, indeed, done him such justice!'

'See then,' said his Lordship, 'how futile an animal is man, without some decided character and principle!

He's every thing by turns, and nothing long[3].

[Footnote 3: Dryden's Absalom and Achitophel.]

Wise, foolish; virtuous, vicious; active, indolent; prodigal and avaricious! No contrast is too strong for him while guided but by accident or impulse. This gentleman also, in common with the rest of his tonnish brethren, is now daily, though unconsciously, hoarding up a world of unprepared-for mortification, by not foreseeing that the more he is celebrated in his youth, for being the leader of the ton, and the man of the day, the earlier he will be regarded as a creature out of date, an old beau, and a fine gentleman of former times. But 'tis by reverses, such as these, that folly and impropriety pay their penalties. We might spare all our anger against the vanity of the beauty, or the conceit of the coxcomb. Are not wrinkles always in waiting to punish the one, and age, without honour, to chastise and degrade the other?'

All the rafflers were now arrived, except Mrs. Berlinton, who was impatiently expected. Lady Alithea Selmore had already sent a proxy to throw for her in her own woman; much to the dissatisfaction of most part of the company. A general rising and inquietude to look out for Mrs. Berlinton, gave Edgar, at length, an opportunity to stand next to Camilla. 'How I grieve,' he cried 'you should not know Lady Isabella Irby! she seems to me a model for a woman of rank in her manners, and a model for a woman of every station in her mind. The world, I believe, could scarce have tempted her to so offensive a mark of superiority as has just been exhibited by Lady Alithea Selmore, who has ingeniously discovered a method of being signalised as the most important person out of twenty, by making herself nineteen enemies.'

'I wonder,' said Camilla, 'she can think the chance of the ear-rings worth so high a price!'

A footman, in a splendid livery, now entering, inquired for Miss Tyrold. She was pointed out to him by Major Cerwood, and he delivered her a letter from Mrs. Berlinton.

The contents were to entreat she would throw for that lady, who was in the midst of Akenside's Pleasures of the Imagination, and could not tear herself away from them.

Camilla blushed excessively in proclaiming she was chosen Mrs. Berlinton's proxy. Edgar saw with tenderness her modest confusion, and, with a pleasure the most touching, read the favourable impression it made upon Lord O'Lerney and Lady Isabella.

This seemed an opportunity irresistible for venting his fears and cautions about Mrs. Berlinton; and, taking the bustling period in which the rafflers were arranging the order and manner of throwing, he said, in a low, and diffident tone of voice, 'You have committed to me an important and, I fear, an importunate office; yet, while I hold, I cannot persuade myself not to fulfil it; though I know that to give advice which opposes sentiment and feeling, is repugnant to independence and to delicacy. Such, therefore, I do not mean to enforce; but merely to offer hints--intimations--and observations--that without controlling, may put you upon your guard.'

Camilla, affected by this unexpected address, could only look her desire for an explanation.

'The lady,' he continued, 'whom you are presently to represent, appears to be uncommonly engaging?--'

'Indeed she is! She is attractive, gentle, amiable.'

'She seems, also, already to have caught your affection?'

'Who could have withheld it, that had seen her as I have seen her? She is as unhappy as she is lovely....'

'I have heard of your first meeting, with as much pleasure in the presence of mind it called forth on one side, as with doubt and perplexity, upon every circumstance I can gather, of the other.--'

'If you knew her, you would find it impossible to hold any doubts; impossible to resist admiring, compassionating, and loving her!'

'If my knowledge of her bribed an interest in her favour, without convincing me she deserved it, I ought, rather, to regret that you have not escaped falling into such a snare, than that I could have escaped it myself.'

'I believe her free, nay incapable of all ill!' cried Camilla warmly; 'though I dare not assert she is always coolly upon her guard.'

'Do not let me hurt you,' said Edgar, gently; 'I have seen how lovely she is in person, and how pleasing in manners. And she is so young that, were she in a situation less exposed, want of steadiness or judgment might, by a little time, be set right. But here, there is surely much to fear from her early possession of power.... O, that some happier chance had brought about such a peculiar intercourse for you with Lady Isabella Irby! There, to the pleasure of friendship, might be added the modesty of retired elegance, and the security of established respectability.'

'And may not this yet happen, with Mrs. Berlinton? Lady Isabella, though still young, is not in the extreme youth of Mrs. Berlinton: a few more years, therefore, may bring equal discretion; and as she has already every other good quality, you may hereafter equally approve her.'

'Do you think, then,' said Edgar, half smiling, 'that the few years of difference in their age were spent by Lady Isabella in the manner they are now spent by Mrs. Berlinton? do you think she paved the way for her present dignified, though unassuming character, by permitting herself to be surrounded by professed admirers? by letting their sighs reach her ears? by suffering their eyes to fasten with open rapture on her face? and by holding it sufficient not to suppress such liberties, so long as she does not avowedly encourage them?'

Camilla was startled. She had not seen her conduct in this light: yet her understanding refused to deny it might bear this interpretation.

Charmed with the candour of her silence, Edgar continued, 'How wide from all that is open to similar comment, is the carriage and behaviour of Lady Isabella! how clear! how transparent, how free from all conjecture of blemish! They may each, indeed, essentially be equally innocent; and your opinion of Mrs. Berlinton corroborates the impression made by her beautiful countenance: yet how far more highly is the true feminine character preserved, where surmise is not raised, than where it can be parried! Think but of those two ladies, and mark the difference. Lady Isabella, addressed only where known, followed only because loved, sees no adulators encircling her, for adulation would alarm her; no admirers paying her homage, for such homage would offend her. She knows she has not only her own innocence to guard, but the honour of her husband. Whether she is happy with him or not, this deposit is equally sacred.--'

He stopt; for Camilla again started. The irrepressible frankness of her nature revolted against denying how much this last sentence struck her, and she ingenuously exclaimed: 'O that this most amiable young creature were but more aware of this duty!'

'Ah, my dear Miss Camilla,' cried Edgar, with energy, 'since you feel and own ... and with you, that is always one ... this baneful deficiency, drop, or at least suspend an intercourse too hazardous to be indulged with propriety! See what she may be sometime hence, ere you contract further intimacy. At present, unexperienced and unsuspicious, her dangers may be yours. You are too young for such a risk. Fly, fly from it, my dear Miss Camilla!... as if the voice of your mother were calling out to caution you!'

Camilla was deeply touched. An interest so warm in her welfare was soothing, and the name of her mother rendered it awful; yet, thus united, it appeared to her more strongly than ever to announce itself as merely fraternal. She could not suppress a sigh; but he attributed it to the request he had urged, and, with much concern, added: 'What I have asked of you, then, is too severe?'

Again irresistibly sighing, yet collecting all her force to conceal the secret cause, she answered, 'If she is thus exposed to danger ... if her situation is so perilous, ought I not rather to stay by, and help to support her, than by abandoning, perhaps contribute to the evil you think awaiting her?'

'Generous Camilla!' cried he, melted into tender admiration, 'who can oppose so kind a design? So noble a nature!...'

No more could be said, for all preliminaries had been settled, and the throwing being arranged to take place alphabetically, she was soon summoned to represent Mrs. Berlinton.

From this time, Edgar could speak to her no more: even the Major could scarcely make way to her: the two men of the ton would not quit her, and Sir Sedley Clarendel appeared openly devoted to her.

Edgar looked on with the keenest emotion. The proof he had just received that her intrinsic worth was in its first state of excellence, had come home to his heart, and the fear of seeing her altered and spoilt, by the flatteries and dangers which environed her, with his wavering belief in her engagement with Major Cerwood, made him more wretched than ever. But when, some time after, she was called upon to throw for herself, the recollection that, from the former raffle, her half-guinea, even when the prize was in her hand, had been voluntarily withdrawn to be bestowed upon a poor family, so powerfully affected him, that he could not rest in the shop; he was obliged to breathe a freer air, and to hide his disturbance by a retreat.

Her throw was the highest the dice had yet afforded. A Miss Williams alone came after her, whose throw was the lowest; Miss Camilla Tyrold, therefore, was proclaimed to be the winner.

This second testimony of the favour of fortune was a most pleasant surprise to Camilla, and made the room resound with felicitations, till they were interrupted by a violent quarrel upon the Pantiles, whence the voice of Macdersey was heard, hollooing out: 'Don't talk, I say sir! don't presume to say a word!' and that of Mr. Dubster angrily answering, he would talk as long as he thought proper, whether it was agreeable or not.

Sir Sedley advanced to the combatants, in order to help on the dispute; but Edgar, returning at the sound of high words, took the Ensign by the arm, and prevailed with him to accompany him up and down the Pantiles; while Mrs. Mittin ran to Mr. Dubster, and pulling him into the shop, said: 'Mr. Dubster, if I'm not ashamed of you! how can you forget yourself so? talking to gentlemen at such a rate!'

'Why what should hinder me?' cried he; 'do you think I shall put up with every thing as I used to do when you first knew me, and we used to meet at Mr. Typton's, the tallow chandler's, in Shug-lane? no, Mrs. Mittin, nor no such a thing; I'm turned gentleman myself, now, as much as the best of 'em; for I've nothing to do, but just what I choose.'

'I protest, Mr. Dubster,' cried Mrs. Mittin, taking him into a corner 'you're enough to put a saint into a pet! how come you to think of talking of Mr. Typton here? before such gentlefolks? and where's the use of telling every body he's a tallow chandler? and as to my meeting with you there once or so, in a way, I desire you'll mention it no more; for it's so long ago, I have no recollection of it.'

'No! why don't you remember--'

'Fiddle, faddle, what's the good of ripping up old stories about nothing? when you're with genteel people, you must do as I do; never talk about business at all.'

Macdersey now entered the shop, appeased by Edgar from shewing any further wrath, but wantonly inflamed by Sir Sedley, in a dispute upon the passion of love.

'Do you always, my dear friend,' said the Baronet, 'fall in love at first sight?'

'To be sure I do! If a man makes a scruple of that, it's ten to one but he's disappointed of doing it at all; because, after two or three second sights, the danger is you may spy out some little flaw in the dear angel, that takes off the zest, and hinders you to the longest day you have to live.'

'Profoundly cogitated that! you think then, my vast dear sir, the passion had more conveniently be kindled first, that the flaws may appear after, to cure it?'

'No, sir! no! when a man's once in love, those flaws don't signify, because he can't see them; or, if he could, at least he'd scorn to own them.'

'Live for ever brave Ireland!' exclaimed Mrs. Arlbery; 'what cold, phelgmatic Englishman would have made a speech of so much gallantry?'

'As to an Englishman,' said Macdersey, 'you must never mind what he says about the ladies, because he's too sheepish to speak out. He's just as often in love as his neighbours, only he's so shy he won't own it, till he sees if the young fair one is as much in love as himself; but a generous Irishman never scruples to proclaim the girl of his heart, though he should have twenty in a year.'

'But is that perfectly delicate, my dearest sir, to the several Dulcineas?'

'Perfectly! your Irishman is the delicatest man upon earth to the fair sex; for he always talks of their cruelty, if they are never so kind. He knows every honest heart will pity him, if it's true; and if it i'n't, he is too much a man of honour not to complain all one; he knows how agreeable it is to the dear creatures; they always take it for a compliment.'

'Whether avowedly or clandestinely,' said Mrs. Arlbery, 'still you are all in our chains. Even where you play the tyrant with us, we occupy all your thoughts; and if you have not the skill to make us happy, your next delight is to make us miserable; for though, now and then, you can contrive to hate, you can never arrive at forgetting us.'

'Contrive to hate you!' repeated Macdersey; 'I could as soon contrive to turn the world into a potato; there is nothing upon earth, nothing under the whole firmament I value but beauty!'

'A cheerful glass, then,' said Sir Sedley, 'you think horridly intolerable?'

'A cheerful glass, sir! do you take me for a milk-sop? do you think I don't know what it is to be a man? a cheerful glass, sir, is the first pleasure in life; the most convivial, the most exhilarating, the most friendly joy of a true honest soul! what were existence without it? I should choose to be off in half an hour; which I should only make so long, not to shock my friends.'

'Well, the glass is not what I patronise,' said Sir Theophilus; 'it hips me so consumedly the next day; no, I can't patronise the glass.'

'Not patronise wine?' cried Lord Newford; 'O hang it! O curse it! that's too bad, Offy! but hunting! what dost think of that, little Offy?'

'Too obstreperous! It rouses one at such aukward hours; no, I can't patronise hunting.'

'Hunting!' cried Macdersey; 'O, it leaves everything behind it; 'tis the thing upon the earth for which I have the truest taste. I know nothing else that is not a bauble to it. A man is no more, in my estimation, than a child, or a woman, that don't enjoy it.'

'Cards, then,' said Sir Sedley, 'you reprobate?'

'And dice?'--cried Lord Newford--

'And betting?'--cried Sir Theophilus.

'Why what do you take me for, gentlemen?' replied Macdersey, hotly; 'Do you think I have no soul? no fire? no feeling? Do you suppose me a stone? a block? a lump of lead? I scorn such suspicions; I don't hold them worth answering. I am none of that torpid, morbid, drowsy tribe. I hold nobody to have an idea of life that has not rattled in his own hand the dear little box of promise. What ecstasy not to know if, in two seconds, one mayn't be worth ten thousand pounds! or else without a farthing! how it puts one on the rack! There's nothing to compare with it. I would not give up that moment to be sovereign of the East Indies! no, not if the West were to be put into the bargain.'

'All these things,' said Mr. Dennel, 'are fit for nothing but to bring a man to ruin. The main chance is all that is worth thinking of. 'Tis money makes the mare to go; and I don't know any thing that's to be done without it.'

'Money!' exclaimed Macdersey, 'tis the thing under heaven I hold in the most disdain. It won't give me a moment's concern never to see its colour again. I vow solemnly, if it were not just for the pleasures of the table, and a jolly glass with a friend, and a few horses in one's stable, and a little ready cash in one's purse, for odd uses, I should not care if the mint were sunk under ground to-morrow; money is what I most despise of all.'

'That's talking out of reason,' said Mr. Dennel, walking out of the shop with great disgust.

'Why, if I was to speak,' said Mr. Dubster, encouraged to come forward, by an observation so much to his own comprehension and taste as the last; 'I can't but say I think the same; for money--'

'Keep your distance, sir!' cried the fiery Ensign, 'keep your distance, I tell you! if you don't wish I should say something to you pretty cutting.'

This broke up the party, which else the lounging spirit of the place, and the general consent by which all descriptions of characters seem determined to occupy any spot whatever, to avoid a moment's abode in their lodgings, would still have detained till the dinner hour had forced to their respective homes. To suppress all possibility of further dissention, Mrs. Arlbery put Miss Dennel under the care of Macdersey, and bid him attend her towards Mount Pleasant.

Mr. Dubster, having stared after them some time in silence, called out: 'Keep my distance! I can't but say but what I think that young Captain the rudest young gentleman I ever happened to light upon! however, if he don't like me, I shan't take it much to heart; I can't pretend to say I like him any better; so he may choose; it's much the same to me; it breaks no squares.'

Edgar, almost without knowing it, followed Camilla, but he could displace neither the Baronet nor the Major, who, one with a look of open exultation, and the other with an air of determined perseverance, retained each his post at her side.

He saw that all her voluntary attention was to Sir Sedley, and that the Major had none but what was called for and inevitable. Was this indifference, or security? was she seeking to obtain in the Baronet a new adorer, or to excite jealousy, through his means, in an old one? Silent he walked on, perpetually exclaiming to himself: 'Can it be Camilla, the ingenuous, the artless Camilla, I find it so difficult to fathom, to comprehend, to trust?'

He had not spirits to join Mrs. Arlbery, though he lamented he had not, at once, visited her; since it was now awkward to take such a step without an invitation, which she seemed by no means disposed to offer him. She internally resented the little desire he had ever manifested for her acquaintance; and they had both too much penetration not to perceive how wide either was from being the favourite of the other.

Chapter XII

Traits of Eccentricity

Thus passed the first eight days of the Tunbridge excursion, and another week succeeded without any varying event.

Mrs. Arlbery now, impelled with concern for Camilla, and resentment against Edgar, renewed the subject of her opinion and advice upon his character and conduct. 'My dear young friend,' cried she, 'I cannot bear to see your days, your views, your feelings, thus fruitlessly consumed: I have observed this young man narrowly, and I am convinced he is not worth your consideration.'

Camilla, deeply colouring, was beginning to assure her she had no need of this counsel; but Mrs. Arlbery, not listening, continued.

'I know what you must say; yet, once more, I cannot refrain venturing at the liberty of lending you my experience. Turn your mind from him with all the expedition in your power, or its peace may be touched for the better half of your life. You do not see, he does not, perhaps, himself know, how exactly he is calculated to make you wretched. He is a watcher; and a watcher, restless and perturbed himself, infests all he pursues with uneasiness. He is without trust, and therefore without either courage or consistency. To-day he may be persuaded you will make all his happiness; to-morrow, he may fear you will give him nothing but misery. Yet it is not that he is jealous of any other; 'tis of the object of his choice he is jealous, lest she should not prove good enough to merit it. Such a man, after long wavering, and losing probable happiness in the terror of possible disappointment, will either die an old batchelor, with endless repinings at his own lingering fastidiousness, or else marry just at the eve of confinement for life, from a fit of the gout. He then makes, on a sudden, the first prudent choice in his way; a choice no longer difficult, but from the embarrassment of its ease; for she must have no beauty, lest she should be sought by others, no wit, lest others should be sought by herself; and no fortune, lest she should bring with it a taste of independence, that might curb his own will, when the strength and spirit are gone with which he might have curbed her's.'

Camilla attempted to laugh at this portrait; but Mrs. Arlbery entreated her to consider it as faithful and exact. 'You have thought of him too much,' cried she, 'to do justice to any other, or you would not, with such perfect unconcern, pass by your daily increasing influence with Sir Sedley Clarendel.'

Excessively, and very seriously offended, Camilla earnestly besought to be spared any hints of such a nature.

'I know well,' cried she, 'how repugnant to seventeen is every idea of life that is rational. Let us, therefore, set aside, in our discussions, any thing so really beneficial, as a solid connection formed with a view to the worldly comforts of existence, and speak of Sir Sedley's devoirs merely as the instrument of teaching Mandlebert, that he is not the only rich, young, and handsome man in this lower sphere, who has viewed Miss Camilla Tyrold with complacency. Clarendel, it is true, would lose every charm in my estimation by losing his heart; for the earth holds nothing comparable for deadness of weight, with a poor soul really in love--except when it happens to be with oneself!--yet, to alarm the selfish irresolution of that impenetrable Mandlebert, I should really delight to behold him completely caught.'

Camilla, distressed and confused, sought to parry the whole as raillery: but Mrs. Arlbery would not be turned aside from her subject and purpose. 'I languish, I own,' cried she, 'to see that frozen youth worked up into a little sensibility. I have an instinctive aversion to those cold, haughty, drawing-back characters, who are made up of the egotism of looking out for something that is wholly devoted to them, and that has not a breath to breathe that is not a sigh for their perfections.'

'O! this is far ...' Camilla began, meaning to say, far from the character of Mandlebert; but ashamed of undertaking his defence, she stopt short, and only mentally added, Even excellence such as his cannot, then, withstand prejudice!

'If there is any way,' continued Mrs. Arlbery, 'of animating him for a moment out of himself, it can only be by giving him a dread of some other. The poor Major does his best; but he is not rich enough to be feared, unless he were more attractive. Sir Sedley will seem more formidable. Countenance, therefore, his present propensity to wear your chains, till Mandlebert perceives that he is putting them on; and then ... mount to the rising ground you ought to tread, and shew, at once, your power and your disinterestedness, by turning from the handsome Baronet and all his immense wealth, to mark ... since you are determined to indulge it ... your unbiassed preference for Mandlebert.'

Camilla, irresistibly appeased by a picture so flattering to all her best feelings, and dearest wishes, looked down; angry with herself to find she felt no longer angry with Mrs. Arlbery.

Mrs. Arlbery, perceiving a point gained, determined to enforce the blow, and then leave her to her reflections.

'Mandlebert is a creature whose whole composition is a pile of accumulated punctilios. He will spend his life in refining away his own happiness: but do not let him refine away yours. He is just a man to bewitch an innocent and unguarded young woman from forming any other connexion, and yet, when her youth and expectations have been sacrificed to his hesitation, ... to conceive he does not use her ill in thinking of her no more, because he has entered into no verbal engagement. If his honour cannot be arraigned of breaking any bond, ... What matters merely breaking her heart?'

She then left the room; but Camilla dwelt upon nothing she had uttered except the one dear and inviting project of proving disinterestedness to Edgar. 'O! if once,' she cried, 'I could annihilate every mercenary suspicion! If once I could shew Edgar that his situation has no charms for me ... and it has none! none! then, indeed, I am his equal, though I am nothing, ... equal in what is highest, in mind, in spirit, in sentiment!

* * * * *

From this time the whole of her behaviour became coloured by this fascinating idea; and a scheme which, if proposed to her under its real name of coquetry, she would have fled and condemned with antipathy, when presented to her as a means to mark her freedom from sordid motives, she adopted with inconsiderate fondness. The sight, therefore, of Edgar, wherever she met him, became now the signal for adding spirit to the pleasure with which, already, and without any design, she had attended to the young Baronet. Exertion gave to her the gaiety of which solicitude had deprived her, and she appeared, in the eyes of Sir Sedley, every day more charming. She indulged him with the history of her adventure at the house of Mr. Dubster, and his prevalent taste for the ridiculous made the account enchant him. He cast off, in return, all airs of affectation, when he conversed with her separately; and though still, in all mixt companies, they were resumed, the real integrity, as well as indifference of her heart, made that a circumstance but to stimulate this new species of intercourse, by representing it to be equally void of future danger to them both.

All this, however, failed of its desired end. Edgar never saw her engaged by Sir Sedley, but he thought her youthfully grateful, and esteemed her the more, or beheld her as a mere coquette, and ceased to esteem her at all. But never for a moment was any personal uneasiness excited by their mutually increasing intimacy. The conversations he had held, both with the Baronet and herself, had satisfied him that neither entertained one serious thought of the other; and he took, therefore, no interest in their acquaintance, beyond that which was always alive,--a vigilant concern for the manner in which it might operate upon her disposition.

With respect to the Major, he was by no means so entirely at his ease. He saw him still the declared and undisguised pursuer of her favour; and though he perceived, at the same time, she rather avoided than sought him, he still imagined, in general, his acceptance was arranged, from the many preceding circumstances which had first given him that belief. The whole of her behaviour, nevertheless, perplexed as much as it grieved him, and frequently, in the same half hour, she seemed to him all that was most amiable for inspiring admiration, and all that was least to be depended upon, for retaining attachment.

Yet however, from time to time, he felt alarmed or offended, he never ceased to experience the fondest interest in her happiness, nor the most tender compassion for the dangers with which he saw her environed. He knew, that though her understanding was excellent, her temper was so inconsiderate, that she rarely consulted it; and that, though her mind was of the purest innocence, it was unguarded by caution, and unprotected by reflexion. He thought her placed where far higher discretion, far superior experience, might risk being shaken; and he did not more fervently wish, than internally tremble, for her safety. Wherever she appeared, she was sure of distinction: ''Tis Miss Tyrold, the friend of Mrs. Berlinton,' was buzzed round the moment she was seen; and the particular favour in which she stood with some votaries of the ton, made even her artlessness, her retired education, and her ignorance of all that pertained to the certain circles, past over and forgiven, in consideration of her personal attractions, her youth, and newness.

Still, however, even this celebrity was not what most he dreaded: so sudden and unexpected an elevation upon the heights of fashionable fame might make her head, indeed, giddy, but her heart he thought formed of materials too pure and too good to be endangered so lightly; and though frequently, when he saw her so circumstanced, he feared she was undone for private life, he could not reflect upon her principles and disposition, without soon recovering the belief that a short time might restore her mind to its native simplicity and worth. But another rock was in the way, against which he apprehended she might be dashed, whilst least suspicious of any peril.

This rock, indeed, exhibited nothing to the view that could have affrighted any spectator less anxiously watchful, or less personally interested in regarding it. But youth itself, in the fervour of a strong attachment, is as open-eyed, as observant, and as prophetic as age, with all its concomitants of practice, time, and suspicion. This rock, indeed, far from giving notice of danger by any sharp points or rough prominences, displayed only the smoothest and most inviting surface: for it was Mrs. Berlinton, the beautiful, the accomplished, the attractive Mrs. Berlinton, whom he beheld as the object of the greatest risk she had to encounter.

As he still preserved the character with which she had consented to invest him of her monitor, he seized every opportunity of communicating to her his doubts and apprehensions. But in proportion as her connexion with that lady increased, use to her manners and sentiments abated the wonderment they inspired, and they soon began to communicate an unmixt charm, that made all other society, that of Edgar alone excepted, heartless and uninteresting. Yet, in the conversations she held with him from time to time, she frankly related the extraordinary attachment of her new friend to some unknown correspondent, and confessed her own surprise when it first came to her knowledge.

Edgar listened to the account with the most unaffected dismay, and represented the probable danger, and actual impropriety of such an intercourse, in the strongest and most eloquent terms; but he could neither appal her confidence, nor subdue her esteem. The openness with which all had originally and voluntarily been avowed, convinced her of the innocence with which it was felt, and all that his exhortations could obtain, was a remonstrance on her own part to Mrs. Berlinton.

She found that lady, however, persuaded she indulged but an innocent friendship, which she assured her was bestowed upon a person of as much honour as merit, and which only with life she should relinquish, since it was the sole consolation of her fettered existence.

Edgar, to whom this was communicated, saw with terror the ascendance thus acquired over her judgment as well as her affections, and became more watchful and more uneasy in observing the progress of this friendship, than all the flattering devoirs of the gay Baronet, or the more serious assiduities of the Major.

Mrs. Berlinton, indeed, was no common object, either for fear or for hope, for admiration or for censure. She possessed all that was most softly attractive, most bewitchingly beautiful, and most irresistibly captivating, in mind, person, and manners. But to all that was thus most fascinating to others, she joined unhappily all that was most dangerous for herself; an heart the most susceptible, sentiments the most romantic, and an imagination the most exalted. She had been an orphan from earliest years, and left, with an only brother, to the care of a fanatical maiden aunt, who had taught her nothing but her faith and her prayers, without one single lesson upon good works, or the smallest instruction upon the practical use of her theoretical piety. All that ever varied these studies were some common and ill selected novels and romances, which a young lady in the neighbourhood privately lent her to read; till her brother, upon his first vacation from the University, brought her the works of the Poets. These, also, it was only in secret she could enjoy; but, to her juvenile fancy, and irregularly principled mind, that did not render them more tasteless. Whatever was most beautifully picturesque in poetry, she saw verified in the charming landscapes presented to her view in the part of Wales she inhabited; whatever was most noble or tender in romance, she felt promptly in her heart, and conceived to be general; and whatever was enthusiastic in theology, formed the whole of her idea and her belief with respect to religion.

Brought up thus, to think all things the most unusual and extraordinary, were merely common and of course; she was romantic without consciousness, and excentric without intention. Nothing steady or rational had been instilled into her mind by others; and she was too young, and too fanciful to have formed her own principles with any depth of reflection, or study of propriety. She had entered the world, by a sudden and most unequal marriage, in which her choice had no part, with only two self-formed maxims for the law of her conduct. The first of these was, that, from her early notions of religion, no vestal should be more personally chaste; the second, that, from her more recently imbibed ones of tenderness, her heart, since she was married without its concurrence, was still wholly at liberty to be disposed of by its own propensities, without reproach and without scruple.

With such a character, where virtue had so little guide even while innocence presided; where the person was so alluring, and the situation so open to temptation, Edgar saw with almost every species of concern the daily increasing friendship of Camilla. Yet while he feared for her firmness, he knew not how to blame her fondness; nor where so much was amiable in its object, could he cease to wish that more were right.

* * * * *

Thus again lived and died another week; and the fourth succeeded with no actual occurrence, but a new change of opinion in Mrs. Arlbery, that forcibly and cruelly affected the feelings of Camilla.

Uninformed of the motive that occasioned the indifference with which Edgar beheld the newly awakened gallantry of Sir Sedley, and the pleasure with which Camilla received it, Mrs. Arlbery observed his total unconcern, first with surprise, next with perplexity, and finally with a belief he was seriously resolved against forming any connection with her himself. This she took an early opportunity to intimate to Camilla, warmly exhorting her to drive him fast from her mind.

Camilla assured her that no task could be more easy; but the disappointment of the project with respect to Sir Sedley, which she blushed to have adopted, hurt her in every possible direction. Coquetry was as foreign to the ingenuousness of her nature, as to the dignity of all her early maternal precepts. She had hastily encouraged the devoirs of the Baronet, upon the recommendation of a woman she loved and admired; but now, that the failure of her aim brought her to reflexion, she felt penitent and ashamed to have heeded any advice so contrary to the singleness of the doctrines of her father, and so inferior to the elevation of every sentiment she had ever heard from her mother. If Edgar had seen her design, he had surely seen it with contempt: and though his manner was still the most gentle, and his advice ever ready and friendly, the opinion of Mrs. Arlbery was corroborated by all her own observations, that he was decidedly estranged from her.

What repentance ensued! what severity of regret! how did she canvass her conduct, how lament she had ever formed that fatal acquaintance with Mrs. Arlbery, which he had so early opposed, and which seemed eternally destined to lead her into measures and conduct most foreign to his approbation!

The melancholy that now again took possession of her spirits made her decline going abroad, from a renewed determination to avoid all meetings with Edgar. Mrs. Arlbery felt provoked to find his power thus unabated, and Sir Sedley was astonished. He still saw her perpetually, from his visits at Mount Pleasant; but his vanity, that weakest yet most predominant feature of his character, received a shock for which no modesty of apprehension or fore-thought had prepared him, in finding that, when he saw her no more in the presence of Mandlebert, he saw her no more the same. She was ready still to converse with him; but no peculiar attention was flattering, no desire to oblige was pointed. He found he had been merely a passive instrument, in her estimation, to excite jealousy; and even as such had been powerless to produce that effect. The raillery which Mrs. Arlbery spared not upon the occasion added greatly to his pique, and his mortification was so visible, that Camilla perceived it, and perceived it with pain, with shame, and with surprise. She thought now, for the first time, that the public homage he had paid her had private and serious motives, and that what she imagined mere sportive gallantry, arose from a growing attachment.

This idea had no gratifying power; believing Edgar without care for her, she could not hope it would stimulate his regard; and conceiving she had herself excited the partiality by wilful civilities, she could feel only reproach from a conquest, unduly, unfairly, uningenuously obtained.

In proportion as these self-upbraidings made her less deserving in her own eyes, the merits of the young Baronet seemed to augment; and in considering herself as culpable for having raised his regard, she appeared before him with a humility that gave a softness to her look and manners, which soon proved as interesting to Sir Sedley as her marked gaiety had been flattering.

When she perceived this, she felt distressed anew. To shun him was impossible, as Mrs. Arlbery not only gave him completely the freedom of her house, but assiduously promoted their belonging always to the same group, and being seated next to each other. There was nothing she would not have done to extenuate her error, and to obviate its ill effect upon Sir Sedley; but as she always thought herself in the wrong, and regarded him as injured, every effort was accompanied with a timidity that gave to every change a new charm, rather than any repulsive quality.

In this state of total self-disapprobation, to return to Etherington was her only wish, and to pass the intermediate time with Mrs. Berlinton became her sole pleasure. But she was forced again into public to avoid an almost single intercourse with Sir Sedley.

In meeting again with Edgar she saw him openly delighted at her sight, but without the least apparent solicitude, or notice, that the young Baronet had passed almost the whole of the interval upon Mount Pleasant.

This was instantly noticed, and instantly commented upon by Mrs. Arlbery, who again, and strongly pointed out to Camilla, that to save her youth from being wasted by fruitless expectation, she must forget young Mandlebert, and study only her own amusement.

Camilla dissented not from the opinion; but the doctrine to which it was easy to agree, it was difficult to put in practice; and her ardent mind believed itself fettered for ever, and for ever unhappy.

Chapter XIII

Traits of Instruction

The sixth and last week destined for the Tunbridge sojourn was begun, when Mrs. Arlbery once more took her fair young guest apart, and intreated her attention for one final half hour. The time, she said, was fast advancing in which they must return to their respective homes; but she wished to make a full and clear representation of the advantages that might be reaped from this excursion, before the period for gathering them should be past.

She would forbear, she said, entering again upon the irksome subject of the insensibility of Mandlebert, which was, at least, sufficiently glaring to prevent any delusion. But she begged leave to speak of what she believed had less obviously struck her, the apparent promise of a serious attachment from Sir Sedley Clarendel.

Camilla would here instantly have broken up the conversation, but Mrs. Arlbery insisted upon being heard.

Why, she asked, should she wilfully destine her youth to a hopeless waste of affection, and dearth of all permanent comfort? To sacrifice every consideration to the honours of constancy, might be soothing, and even glorious in this first season of romance; but a very short time would render it vapid; and the epoch of repentance was always at hand to succeed. With the least address, or the least genuine encouragement, it was now palpable she might see Sir Sedley, and his title and fortune at her feet.

Camilla resentfully interrupted her, disclaiming with Sir Sedley, as with everyone else, all possibility of alliance from motives so degrading; and persisted, in declaring, that the most moderate subsistence with freedom, would be preferable to the most affluent obtained by any mercenary engagement.

Mrs. Arlbery desired her to recollect that Sir Sedley, though rich even to splendour, was so young, so gay, so handsome, and so pleasant, that she might safely honour him with her hand, yet run no risk of being supposed to have made a merely interested alliance. 'I throw out this,' she cried, 'in conclusion, for your deepest consideration, but I must press it no further. Sir Sedley is evidently charmed with you at present; and his vanity is so potent, and, like all vanity, so easily assailable, that the smallest food to it, adroitly administered, would secure him your slave for life, and rescue you from the antediluvian courtship of a man, who, if he marries at all, is so deliberate in his progress, that he must reach his grand climacteric before he can reach the altar.'

* * * * *

Far from meditating upon this discourse with any view to following its precepts, Camilla found it necessary to call all her original fondness for Mrs. Arlbery to her aid, to forgive the plainness of her attack, or the worldliness of her notions: and all that rested upon her mind for consideration was, her belief in the serious regard of Sir Sedley, which, as she apprehended it to be the work of her own designed exertions, she could only think of with contrition.

These ruminations were interrupted by a call down stairs to see a learned bullfinch. The Dennels and Sir Sedley were present; she met the eyes of the latter with a sensation of shame that quickly deepened her whole face with crimson. He did not behold it without emotion, and experienced a strong curiosity to define its exact cause.

He addressed himself to her with the most marked distinction; she could scarcely answer him; but her manner was even touchingly gentle. Sir Sedley could not restrain himself from following her in every motion by his eyes; he felt an interest concerning her that surprised him; he began to doubt if it had been indifference which caused her late change; her softness helped his vanity to recover its tone, and her confusion almost confirmed him that Mrs. Arlbery had been mistaken in rallying his failure of rivalry with Mandlebert.

The bird sung various little airs, upon certain words of command, and mounted his highest, and descended to his lowest perch; and made whatever evolutions were within the circumference of his limited habitation, with wonderful precision.

Camilla, however, was not more pleased by his adroitness, than pained to observe the severe aspect with which his keeper issued his orders. She inquired by what means he had obtained such authority.

The man, with a significant wag of the head, brutally answered, 'By the true old way, Miss; I licks him.'

'Lick him!' repeated she, with disgust; 'how is it possible you can beat such a poor delicate little creature?'

'O, easy enough, Miss,' replied the man, grinning; 'everything's the better for a little beating, as I tells my wife. There's nothing so fine set, Miss, but what will bear it, more or less.'

Sir Sedley asked with what he could strike it, that would not endanger its life.

'That's telling, sir!' cried the man, with a sneer; 'howbeit, we've plenty of ill luck in the trade. No want of that. For one that I rears, I loses six or seven. And sometimes they be so plaguy sulky, they tempt me to give 'em a knock a little matter too hard, and then they'll fall you into a fit, like, and go off in a twinkle.'

'And how can you have the cruelty,' cried Camilla, indignantly, 'to treat in such a manner a poor little inoffensive animal who does not understand what you require?'

'O, yes, a does, miss, they knows what I wants as well as I do myself; only they're so dead tiresome at being shy. Why now this one here, as does all his larning to satisfaction just now, mayhap won't do nothing at all by an hour or two. Why sometimes you may pinch 'em to a mummy before you can make 'em budge.'

'Pinch them!' exclaimed she; 'do you ever pinch them?'

'Do I? Ay, miss. Why how do you think one larns them dumb creturs? It don't come to 'em natural. They are main dull of themselves. This one as you see here would do nothing at all, if he was not afraid of a tweak.'

'Poor unhappy little thing!' cried she! 'I hope, at least, now it has learnt so much, its sufferings are over!'

'Yes, yes, he's pretty well off. I always gives him his fill when he's done his day's work. But a little squeak now and then in the intrum does 'em no harm. They're mortal cunning. One's forced to be pretty tough with 'em.'

'How should I rejoice,' cried Camilla, 'to rescue this one poor unoffending and oppressed little animal from such tyranny!' Then, taking out her purse, she desired to know what he would have for it.

The man, as a very great favour, said he would take ten guineas; though it would be his ruin to part with it, as it was all his livelihood; but he was willing to oblige the young lady.

Camilla, with a constrained laugh, but a very natural blush, put up her purse, and said: 'Thou must linger on, then, in captivity, thou poor little undeserving sufferer, for I cannot help thee!'

Every body protested that ten guineas was an imposition; and the man offered to part with it for five.

Camilla, who had imagined it would have cost half a guinea, was now more ashamed, because equally incapable to answer such a demand; she declined, therefore, the composition, and the man was dismissed.

* * * * *

At night, when she returned to her own room from the play, she saw the little bullfinch, reposing in a superb cage, upon her table.

Delighted first, and next perplexed, she flew to Mrs. Arlbery, and inquired whence it came.

Mrs. Arlbery was as much amazed as herself.

Questions were then asked of the servants; but none knew, or none would own, how the bird became thus situated.

Camilla could not now doubt but Sir Sedley had given this commission to his servant, who could easily place the cage in her room, from his constant access to the house. She was enchanted to see the little animal relieved from so painful a life, but hesitated not a moment in resolving to refuse its acceptance.

When Sir Sedley came the next day, she carried it down, and, with a smile of open pleasure, thanked him for giving her so much share in his generous liberality; and asked if he could take it home with him in his carriage, or, if she should send it to his hotel.

Sir Sedley was disappointed, yet felt the propriety of her delicacy and her spirit. He did not deny the step he had taken, but told her that having hastily, from the truth of reflection her compassion had awakened, ordered his servant to follow the man, and buy the bird, he had forgotten, till it arrived, his incapability of taking care of it. His valet was as little at home as himself, and there was small chance, at an inn, that any maid would so carefully watch, as to prevent its falling a prey to the many cats with which it was swarming. He hoped, therefore, till their return to Hampshire, she would take charge of a little animal that owed its deliverance from slavery to her pitying comments.

Camilla, instinctively, would with unfeigned joy, have accepted such a trust: but she thought she saw something archly significant in the eye of Mrs. Arlbery, and therefore stammered out, she was afraid she should herself be too little at home to secure its safety.

Sir Sedley, looking extremely blank, said, it would be better to re-deliver it to the man, brute as he was, than to let it be unprotected; but, where generosity touched Camilla, reflection ever flew her; and off all guard at such an idea, she exclaimed she would rather relinquish going out again while at Tunbridge, than render his humanity abortive; and ran off precipitately with the bird to her chamber.

Mrs. Arlbery, soon following, praised her behaviour; and said, she had sent the Baronet away perfectly happy.

Camilla, much provoked, would now have had the bird conveyed after him; but Mrs. Arlbery assured her, inconsistency in a woman was as flattering, as in a man it was tedious and alarming; and persuaded her to let the matter rest.

Her mind, however, did not rest at the same time: in the evening, when the Baronet met them at the Rooms, he was not only unusually gay, but looked at her with an air and manner that seemed palpably to mark her as the cause of his satisfaction.

In the deepest disturbance, she considered herself now to be in a difficulty the most delicate; she could not come forward to clear it up, without announcing expectations from his partiality which he had never authorised by any declaration; nor yet suffer such symptoms of his believing it welcome to pass unnoticed, without risking the reproach of using him ill, when she made known, at a later period, her indifference.

Mrs. Arlbery would not aid her, for she thought the embarrassment might lead to a termination the most fortunate. To consult with Edgar was her first wish; but how open such a subject? The very thought, however, gave her an air of solicitude when he spoke to her, that struck him, and he watched for an opportunity to say, 'You have not, I hope, forgotten my province?... May I, in my permitted office, ask a few questions?'

'O, yes!' cried she, with alacrity; 'And, when they are asked, and when I have answered them, if you should not be too much tired, may I ask some in my turn?'

'Of me!' cried he, with the most gratified surprise.

'Not concerning yourself!' answered she, blushing; 'but upon something which a little distresses me.'

'When, and where may it be?' cried he, while a thousand conjectures rapidly succeeded to each other; 'may I call upon Mrs. Arlbery to-morrow morning?'

'O, no! we shall be, I suppose, here again at night,' she answered; dreading arranging a visit Mrs. Arlbery would treat, she knew, with raillery the most unmerciful.

There was time for no more, as that lady, suddenly tired, led the way to the carriage. Edgar followed her to the door, hoping and fearing, at once, every thing that was most interesting from a confidence so voluntary and so unexpected.

Camilla was still more agitated; for though uncertain if she were right or wrong in the appeal she meant to make, to converse with him openly, to be guided by his counsel, and to convince him of her superiority to all mercenary allurements were pleasures to make her look forward to the approaching conference with almost trembling delight.

Chapter XIV

A Demander

The next night, as the carriage was at the door, and the party preparing for the Rooms, the name of Mr. Tyrold was announced, and Lionel entered the parlour.

His manner was hurried, though he appeared gay and frisky as usual; Camilla felt a little alarmed; but Mrs. Arlbery asked if he would accompany them.

With all his heart, he answered, only he must first have a moment's chat with his sister. Then, saying they should have a letter to write together, he called for a pen and ink, and was taking her into another apartment, when Mr. Dennel objected to letting his horses wait.

'Send them back for us, then,' cried Lionel, with his customary ease, 'and we will follow you.'

Mr. Dennel again objected to making his horses so often mount the hill; but Lionel assuring him nothing was so good for them, ran on with so many farrier words and phrases of the benefit they would reap from such light evening exercise, that, persuaded he was master of the subject, Mr. Dennel submitted, and the brother and sister were left tête-à-tête.

At any other time, Camilla would have proposed giving up the Rooms entirely: but her desire to see Edgar, and the species of engagement she had made with him, counterbalanced every inconvenience.

'My dear girl,' said Lionel, 'I am come to beg a favour. You see this pen and ink. Give me a sheet of paper.'

She fetched him one.

'That's a good child,' cried he, patting her cheek; 'so now sit down, and write a short letter for me. Come begin. Dear Sir.'

She wrote--Dear Sir.

'An unforeseen accident,--write on,--an unforeseen accident has reduced me to immediate distress for two hundred pounds....'

Camilla let her pen drop, and rising said, 'Lionel! is this possible?'

'Very possible, my dear. You know I told you I wanted another hundred before you left Cleves. So you must account it only as one hundred, in fact, at present.'

'O Lionel, Lionel!' cried Camilla, clasping her hands, with a look of more remonstrance than any words she durst utter.

'Won't you write the letter?' said he, pretending not to observe her emotion.

'To whom is it to be addressed?'

'My uncle, to be sure, my dear! What can you be thinking of? Are you in love, Camilla?'

'My uncle again? no Lionel, no!--I have solemnly engaged myself to apply to him no more.'

'That was, for me, my dear; but where can your thoughts be wandering? Why you must ask for this, as if it were for yourself.'

'For myself!'

'Yes, certainly. You know he won't give it else.'

'Impossible! what should I want two hundred pounds for?'

'O, a thousand things; say you must have some new gowns and caps, and hats and petticoats, and all those kind of gear. There is not the least difficulty; you can easily persuade him they are all worn out at such a place as this. Besides, I'll tell you what is still better; say you've been robbed; he'll soon believe it, for he thinks all public places filled with sharpers.'

'Now you relieve me,' said she, with a sort of fearful smile, 'for I am sure you cannot be serious. You must be very certain I would not deceive or delude my uncle for a million of worlds.'

'You know nothing of life, child, nothing at all. However, if you won't say that, tell him it's for a secret purpose. At least you can do that. And then, you can make him understand he must ask no questions about the matter. The money is all we want from him.'

'This is so idle, Lionel, that I hope you speak it for mere nonsense. Who could demand such a sum, and refuse to account for its purpose?'

'Account, my dear? Does being an uncle give a man a right to be impertinent? If it does, marry out of hand yourself, there's a good girl, and have a family at once, that I may share the same privilege. I shall like it of all things; who will you have?'

'Pho, pho!'

'Major Cerwood?'

'No, never!'

'I once thought Edgar Mandlebert had a sneaking kindness for you. But I believe it is gone off. Or else I was out.'

This was not an observation to exhilarate her spirits. She sighed: but Lionel, concluding himself the cause, begged her not to be low-spirited, but to write the letter at once.

She assured him she could never again consent to interfere in his unreasonable requests.

He was undone, then, he said; for he could not live without the money.

'Rather say, not with it,' cried she; 'for you keep nothing!'

'Nobody does, my dear; we all go on the same way now-a-days.'

'And what do you mean to be the end of it all, Lionel? How do you purpose living when all these resources are completely exhausted?'

'When I am ruined, you mean? why how do other people live when they're ruined? I can but do the same; though I have not much considered the matter.'

'Do consider it, then, dear Lionel! for all our sakes, do consider it!'

'Well,--let us see.'

'O, I don't mean so; I don't mean just now; in this mere idle manner.--'

'O, yes, I'll do it at once, and then it will be over. Faith I don't well know. I have no great gusta for blowing out my brains. I like the little dears mighty well where they are. And I can't say I shall much relish to consume my life and prime and vigour in the king's bench prison. 'Tis horribly tiresome to reside always on the same spot. Nor I have no great disposition to whisk off to another country. Old England's a pretty place enough. I like it very well; ... with a little rhino understood! But it's the very deuce, with an empty purse. So write the letter, my dear girl.'

'And is this your consideration, Lionel? And is this its conclusion?'

'Why what signifies dwelling upon such dismalties? If I think upon my ruin beforehand, I am no nearer to enjoyment now than then. Live while we live, my dear girl! I hate prophesying horrors. Write, I say, write!'

Again she absolutely refused, pleading her promise to her uncle, and declaring she would keep her word.

'Keep a fiddlestick!' cried he, impatiently; 'you don't know what mischief you may have to answer for! you may bring misery upon all our heads! you may make my father banish me his sight, you may make my mother execrate me!--'

'Good Heaven!' cried Camilla interrupting him, 'what is it you talk of? what is it you mean?'

'Just what I say; and to make you understand me better, I'll give you a hint of the truth; but you must lose your life twenty times before you reveal it--There's--there's--do you hear me?--there's a pretty girl in the case!'

'A pretty girl!--And what has that to do with this rapacity for money?'

'What an innocent question! why what a baby thou art, my dear Camilla!'

'I hope you are not forming any connexion unknown to my father?'

'Ha, ha, ha!' cried Lionel laughing loud: 'Why thou hast lived in that old parsonage-house till thou art almost too young to be rocked in a cradle.'

'If you are entering into any engagement,' said she, still more gravely, 'that my father must not know, and that my mother would so bitterly condemn,--why am I to be trusted with it?'

'You understand nothing of these things, child. 'Tis the very nature of a father to be an hunks, and of a mother to be a bore.'

'O Lionel! such a father!--such a mother!--'

'As to their being perfectly good, and all that, I know it very well. And I am very sorry for it. A good father is a very serious misfortune to a poor lad like me, as the world runs; it causes one such confounded gripes of the conscience for every little awkward thing one does! A bad father would be the joy of my life; 'twould be all fair play there; the more he was choused the better.'

'But this pretty girl, Lionel!--Are you serious? Are you really engaging yourself? And is she so poor? Is she so much distressed, that you require these immense and frequent sums for her?'

Lionel laughed again, and rubbed his hands; but after a short silence assumed a more steady countenance, and said, 'Don't ask me any thing about her. It is not fit you should be so curious. And don't give a hint of the matter to a soul. Mind that! But as to the money, I must have it. And directly: I shall be blown to the deuce else.'

'Lionel!' cried Camilla, shrinking, 'you make me tremble! you cannot surely be so wicked ... so unprincipled.... No! your connexions are never worse than imprudent!--you would not else be so unkind, so injurious as to place in me such a confidence!'

The whole face of Lionel now flashed with shame, and he walked about the room, muttering: ''Tis true, I ought not to have done it.' And soon after, with still greater concern, he exclaimed: 'If this appears to you in such a heinous light, what will my father think of it? And how can I bear to let it be known to my mother?'

'O never, never!' cried she emphatically; 'never let it reach the knowledge of either! If indeed you have been so inconsiderate, and so wrong--break up, at least, any such intercourse before it offends their ears.'

'But how, my dear, can I do that, if it gets blazed abroad?'

'Blazed abroad!'

'Yes; and for want, only, of a few pitiful guineas.'

'What can you mean? How can it depend upon a few guineas?'

'Get me the guineas;--and leave the how to me.'

'My dear Lionel,' cried she, affectionately, 'I would do any thing that is not absolutely improper to serve you; but my uncle has now nothing more to spare; he has told me so himself; and with what courage, then, in this dark, mysterious, and, I fear, worse than mysterious business, can I apply to him?'

'My dear child, he only wants to hoard up his money to shew off poor Eugenia at her marriage; and you know as well as I do what a ninny he is for his pains; for what a poor little dowdy thing will she look, dizened out in jewels and laces?'

'Can you speak so of Eugenia? the most amiable, the most deserving, the most excellent creature breathing!'

'I speak it in pure friendship. I would not have her exposed. I love dear little Greek and Latin as well as you do. Only the difference is I don't talk so like an old woman; and really when you do it yourself, you can't think the ridiculous effect it has, when one looks at your young face. However, only write the request as if from yourself, and tell him you'll acquaint him with the reason next letter; but that the post is just going out now, and you have time for no more. And then, just coax him over a little, with, how you long to be back, and how you hate Tunbridge, and how you adore Cleves, and how tired you are for want of his bright conversation,--and you may command half his fortune.--My dear Camilla, you don't know from what destruction you will rescue me! Think too of my father, and what a shock you will save him: And think of my mother, whom I can never see again if you won't help me!'

Camilla sighed, but let him put the pen into her hand, whence, however, the very next moment's reflection was urging her to cast it down, when he caught her in his arms in a transport of joy, called her his protectress from dishonour and despair, and said he would run to the Rooms while she wrote, just to take the opportunity of seeing them, and to un-order the carriage, that she might have no interruption to her composition, which he would come back to claim before the party returned, as he must set off for Cleves, and gallop all night, to procure the money, which the loss of a single day would render useless.

All this he uttered with a rapidity that mocked every attempt at expostulation or answer; and then ran out of the room and out of the house.

* * * * *

Horrour at such perpetual and increasing ill conduct, grief at the compulsive failure of meeting Edgar, and perplexity how to extricate herself from her half given, but wholly seized upon engagement to write, took for a while nearly equally shares in tormenting Camilla. But all presently concentred in one domineering sentiment of sharp repentance for what she had apparently undertaken.

To claim two hundred pounds of her uncle, in her own name, was out of all question. She could not, even a moment, dwell upon such a project; but how represent what she herself so little understood as the necessity of Lionel? or how ask for so large a sum, and postpone, as he desired, all explanation? She was incapable of any species of fraud, she detested even the most distant disguise. Simple supplication seemed, therefore, her only method; but so difficult was even this, in an affair so dark and unconscionable, that she began twenty letters without proceeding in any one of them beyond two lines.

Thus far, however, her task was light to what it appeared to her upon a little further deliberation. That her brother had formed some unworthy engagement or attachment, he had not, indeed, avowed clearly, but he had by no means denied, and she had even omitted, in her surprise and consternation, exacting his promise that it should immediately be concluded. What, then, might she be doing by endeavouring to procure this money? Aiding perhaps vice and immorality, and assisting her misguided, if not guilty brother, to persevere in the most dangerous errors, if not crimes?

She shuddered, she pushed away her paper, she rose from the table, she determined not to write another word.

Yet, to permit parents she justly revered to suffer any evil she had the smallest chance to spare them, was dreadful to her; and what evil could be inflicted upon them, so deeply, so lastingly severe, as the conviction of any serious vices in any of their children?

This, for one minute, brought her again to the table; but the next, her better judgment pointed out the shallowness and fallacy of such reasoning. To save them present pain at the risk of future anguish, to consult the feelings of her brother, in preference to his morality, would be forgetting every lesson of her life, which, from its earliest dawn, had imbibed a love of virtue, that made her consider whatever was offensive to it as equally disgusting and unhappy.

To disappoint Lionel was, however, terrible. She knew well he would be deaf to remonstrance, ridicule all argument, and laugh off whatever she could urge by persuasion. She feared he would be quite outrageous to find his expectations thus thwarted; and the lateness of the hour when he would hear it, and the weight he annexed, to obtaining the money expeditiously, redoubled at once her regret for her momentary compliance, and her pity for what he would undergo through its failure.

After considering in a thousand ways how to soften to him her recantation, she found herself so entirely without courage to encounter his opposition, that she resolved to write him a short letter, and then retire to her room, to avoid an interview.

In this, she besought him to forgive her error in not sooner being sensible of her duty, which had taught her, upon her first reflexion, the impossibility of demanding two hundred pounds for herself, who wanted nothing, and the impracticability of demanding it for him, in so unintelligible a manner.

Thus far only she had proceeded, from the length of time consumed in regret and rumination, when a violent ringing at the door, without the sound of any carriage, made her start up, and fly to her chamber; leaving her unfinished letter, with the beginnings of her several essays to address Sir Hugh, upon the table, to shew her various efforts, and to explain that they were relinquished.

Chapter XV

An Accorder

Thus, self-confined and almost in an agony, Camilla remained for a quarter of an hour, without any species of interruption, and in the greatest amazement that Lionel forbore pursuing her, either with letter or message.

Another violent ringing at the bell, but still without any carriage, then excited her attention, and presently the voice and steps of Lionel resounded upon the stairs, whence her name was with violence vociferated.

She did not move; and in another minute, he was rapping at her chamber door, demanding admittance, or that she would instantly descend.

Alarmed for her open letter and papers, she inquired who was in the parlour.

'Not a soul,' he answered; 'I have left them all at the Rooms.'

'Have you returned, then, twice?'

'No. I should have been here sooner, but I met two or three old cronies, that would not part with me. Come, where's your letter?'

'Have you not seen what I have written?'

Down upon this intimation he flew, without any reply; but was presently back, saying he found nothing in the parlour, except a letter to herself.

Affrighted, she followed him; but not one of her papers remained. The table was cleared, and nothing was to be seen but a large packet, addressed to her in a hand she did not know.

She rang to inquire who had been in the house before her brother.

The servant answered, only Sir Sedley Clarendel, who he thought had been there still, as he had said he should wait till Mrs. Arlbery came home.

'Is it possible,' cried she, 'that a gentleman such as Sir Sedley Clarendel, can have permitted himself to touch my papers?'

Lionel agreed that it was shocking; but said the loss of time to himself was still worse; without suffering her, therefore, to open her packet, he insisted that she should write another letter directly; adding, he had met the Baronet in his way from the Rooms, but had little suspected whence he came, or how he had been amusing himself.

Camilla now hung about her brother in the greatest tribulation, but refused to take the pen he would have put into her hands, and, at last, not without tears, said: 'Forgive me, Lionel! but the papers you ought to have found would have explained--that I cannot write for you to my uncle.'

Lionel heard this with the indignation of an injured man. He was utterly, he said, lost; and his family would be utterly disgraced, for ruin must be the lot of his father, or exile or imprisonment must be his own, if she persisted in such unkind and unnatural conduct.

Terrour now bereft her of all speech or motion, till the letter, which Lionel had been beating about in his agitation, without knowing or caring what he was doing, burst open, and some written papers fell to the floor, which she recognised for her own.

Much amazed, she seized the cover, which had only been fastened by a wafer that was still wet, and saw a letter within it to herself, which she hastily read, while a paper that was enclosed dropt down, and was caught by Lionel.

To Miss Camilla Tyrold.

Forgive, fairest Camilla, the work of the Destinies. I came hither to see if illness detained you; the papers which I enclose from other curious eyes caught mine by accident. The pathetic sisterly address has touched me. I have not the honour to know Mr. Lionel Tyrold; let our acquaintance begin with an act of confidence on his part, that must bind to him for ever his lovely sister's.

Most obedient and devoted SEDLEY CLARENDEL.

The loose paper, picked up by Lionel, was a draft, upon a banker, for two hundred pounds.

While this, with speechless emotion, was perused by Camilla, Lionel, with unbounded joy, began jumping, skipping, leaping over every chair, and capering round and round the room in an ecstasy.

'My dearest Lionel,' cried she, when a little recovered, 'why such joy? you cannot suppose it possible this can be accepted.'

'Not accepted, child? do you think me out of my senses? Don't you see me freed from all my misfortunes at once? and neither my father grieved, nor my mother offended, nor poor numps fleeced?'

'And when can you pay it? And what do you mean to do? And to whom will be the obligation? Weigh, weigh a little all this.'

Lionel heard her not; his rapture was too buoyant for attention, and he whisked every thing out of its place, from frantic merriment, till he put the apartment into so much disorder, that it was scarce practicable to stir a step in it; now and then interrupting himself to make her low bows, scraping his feet all over the room, and obsequiously saying: 'My sister Clarendel! How does your La'ship do? my dear Lady Clarendel, pray afford me your La'ship's countenance.'

Nothing could be less pleasant to Camilla than raillery which pointed out, that, even by the unreflecting Lionel, this action could be ascribed to but one motive. The draft, however, had fallen into his hands, and neither remonstrance nor petition, neither representation of impropriety nor persuasion, could induce him to relinquish it; he would only dance, sing, and pay her grotesque homage, till the coach stopt at the door; and then, ludicrously hoping her Ladyship would excuse his leaving her, for once, to play the part of the house-maid, in setting the room to rights, he sprang past them all, and bounded down the hill.

Mrs. Arlbery was much diverted by the confusion in the parlour, and Miss Dennel asked a thousand questions why the chairs and tables were all thrown down, the china jars removed from the chimney-piece into the middle of the room, and the sideboard apparatus put on the chimney-piece in their stead.

Camilla was too much confounded either to laugh or explain, and hastily wishing them good-night, retired to her chamber.

Here, in the extremest perturbation, she saw the full extent of her difficulties, without perceiving any means of extrication. She had no hope of recovering the draft from Lionel, whom she had every reason to conclude already journeying from Tunbridge. What could she say the next day to Sir Sedley? How account for so sudden, so gross an acceptance of pecuniary obligation? What inference might he not draw? And how could she undeceive him, while retaining so improper a mark of his dependence upon her favour? The displeasure she felt that he should venture to suppose she would owe to him such a debt, rendered but still more palpable the species of expectation it might authorise.

To destroy this illusion occupied all her attention, except what was imperiously seized upon by regret of missing Edgar, with whom to consult was more than ever her wish.

In this disturbed state, when she saw Mrs. Arlbery the next morning, her whole care was to avoid being questioned: and that lady, who quickly perceived her fears by her avoidance, took the first opportunity to say to her, with a laugh, 'I see I must make no inquiries into the gambols of your brother last night: but I may put together, perhaps, certain circumstances that may give me a little light to the business: and if, as I conjecture, Clarendel spoke out to him, his wildest rioting is more rational than his sister's gravity.'

Camilla protested they had not conversed together at all.

'Nay, then, I own myself still in the dark. But I observed that Clarendel left the Rooms at a very early hour, and that your brother almost immediately followed.'

Camilla ventured not any reply; and soon after retreated.

Mrs. Arlbery, in a few minutes, pursuing her, laughingly, and with sportive reproach, accused her of intending to steal a march to the altar of Hymen; as she had just been informed, by her maid, that Sir Sedley had actually been at the house last night, during her absence.

Camilla seriously assured her, that she was in her chamber when he arrived, and had not seen him.

'For what in the world, then, could he come? He was sure I was not at home, for he had left me at the Rooms?'

Camilla again was silent; but her tingling cheeks proclaimed it was not for want of something to say. Mrs. Arlbery forbore to press the matter further; but forbore with a nod that implied I see how it is! and a smile that published the pleasure and approbation which accompanied her self-conviction.

The vexation of Camilla would have prompted an immediate confession of the whole mortifying transaction, had she not been endued with a sense of honour, where the interests of others were concerned, that repressed her natural precipitance, and was more powerful even than her imprudence.

She waited the greatest part of the morning in some little faint hope of seeing Lionel: but he came not, and she spent the rest of it with Mrs. Berlinton. She anxiously wished to meet Edgar in the way, to apologise for her non-appearance the preceding evening; but this did not happen; and her concern was not lessened by reflecting upon the superior interest in her health and welfare, marked by Sir Sedley, who had taken the trouble to walk from the Rooms to Mount Pleasant to see what was become of her.

She returned home but barely in time to dress for dinner, and was not yet ready, when she saw the carriage of the Baronet drive up to the door.

In the most terrible confusion how to meet him, what to say about the draft, how to mention her brother, whether to seem resentful of the liberty he had so unceremoniously taken, or thankful for its kindness, she had scarce the force to attire herself, nor, when summoned down stairs, to descend.

This distress was but increased upon her entrance, by the sight and the behaviour of the Baronet; whose address to her was so marked, that it covered her with blushes, and whose air had an assurance that spoke a species of secret triumph. Offended as well as frightened, she looked every way to avoid him, or assumed a look of haughtiness, when forced by any direct speech to answer him. She soon, however, saw, by his continued self-complacency, and even an increase of gaiety, that he only regarded this as coquetry, or bashful embarrassment, since every time she attempted thus to rebuff him, an arch smile stole over his features, that displayed his different conception of her meaning.

She now wished nothing so much as a prompt and positive declaration, that she might convince him of his mistake and her rejection. For this purpose, she subdued her desire of retreat, and spent the whole afternoon with Mrs. Arlbery and the Dennels in his company.

Nevertheless, when Mrs. Arlbery, who had the same object in view, though with a different conclusion, contrived to draw her other guests out of the apartment and to leave her alone with Sir Sedley, modesty and shame both interfered with her desire of an explanation, and she was hastily retiring; but the Baronet, in a gentle voice, called after her, 'Are you going?'

'Yes, I have forgotten something....'

He rose to follow her, with a motion that seemed purporting to take her hand; but, gliding quickly on, she prevented him, and was almost at the same moment in her own chamber.

With augmented severity, she now felt the impropriety of an apparent acceptance of so singular and unpleasant an obligation, which obviously misled Sir Sedley to believe her at his command.

Shocked in her delicacy, and stung in her best notions of laudable pride, she could not rest without destroying this humiliating idea; and resolved to apply to Edgar for the money, and to pay the Baronet the next day. Her objections to betraying the extravagance of Lionel, though great and sincere, yielded to the still more dangerous evil of letting Sir Sedley continue in an errour, that might terminate in branding her in his opinion, with a character of inconsistency or duplicity.

Edgar, too, so nearly a brother to them both, would guard the secret of Lionel better, in all probability, than he would guard it himself; and could draw no personal inferences from the trust and obligation when he found its sole incitement was sooner to owe an obligation to a ward of her father, than to a new acquaintance of her own.

Pleased at the seeming necessity of an application that would lead so naturally to a demand of the counsel she languished to claim, she determined not to suffer Sir Sedley to wait even another minute under his mistake; but, since she now could speak of returning the money, to take courage for meeting what might either precede or ensue in a conference.

Down, therefore, she went; but as she opened the parlour door, she heard Sir Sedley say to Mrs. Arlbery, who had just entered before her: 'O, fie! fie! you know she will be cruel to excruciation! you know me destined to despair to the last degree.'

Camilla, whose so speedy re-appearance was the last sight he expected, was too far advanced to retreat; and the resentment that tinged her whole complexion shewed she had heard what he said, and had heard it with an application the most offensive.

An immediate sensibility to his own impertinence now succeeded in its vain display; he looked not merely concerned, but contrite; and, in a voice softened nearly to timidity, attempted a general conversation, but kept his eyes, with an anxious expression, almost continually fixed upon her's.

Anger with Camilla was a quick, but short-lived sensation; and this sudden change in the Baronet from conceit to respect, produced a change equally sudden in herself from disdain to inquietude. Though mortified in the first moment by his vanity, it was less seriously painful to her than any belief that under it was couched a disposition towards a really steady regard. With Mrs. Arlbery she was but slightly offended, though certain she had been assuring him of all the success he could demand: her way of thinking upon the subject had been openly avowed, and she did justice to the kindness of her motives.

No opportunity, however, arose to mention the return of the draft; Mrs. Arlbery saw displeasure in her air, and not doubting she had heard what had dropt from Sir Sedley, thought the moment unfavorable for a tête-à-tête, and resolutely kept her place, till Camilla herself, weary of useless waiting, left the room.

Following her then to her chamber, 'My dear Miss Tyrold,' she cried, 'do not let your extreme youth stand in the way of all your future life. A Baronet, rich, young, and amiable, is upon the very point of becoming your slave for ever; yet, because you discover him to be a little restive in the last agonies of his liberty, you are eager, in the high-flown disdain of juvenile susceptibility, to cast him and his fortune away; as if both were such every-day baubles, that you might command or reject them without thought of future consequence.'

'Indeed no, dear madam; I am not actuated by pride or anger; I owe too much to Sir Sedley to feel either above a moment, even where I think them ... pardon me!... justly excited. But I should ill pay my debt, by accepting a lasting attachment, where certain I can return nothing but lasting, eternal, unchangeable indifference.'

'You sacrifice, then, both him and yourself, to the fanciful delicacy of a first love?'

'No, indeed!' cried she blushing. 'I have no thought at all but of the single life. And I sincerely hope Sir Sedley has no serious intentions towards me; for my obligations to him are so infinite, I should be cruelly hurt to appear to him ungrateful.'

'You would appear to him, I confess, a little surprising,' said Mrs. Arlbery, laughing; 'for diffidence certainly is not his weak part. However, with all his foibles, he is a charming creature, and prepossession only can blind you to his merit.'

Camilla again denied the charge, and strove to prevail with her to undeceive the Baronet from any false expectations. But she protested she would not be accessary to so much after-repentance; and left her.

The business now wore a very serious aspect to Camilla. Mrs. Arlbery avowed she thought Sir Sedley in earnest, and he knew she had herself heard him speak with security of his success. The bullfinch had gone far, but the draft seemed to have riveted the persuasion. The bird it was now impossible to return till her departure from Tunbridge; but she resolved not to defer another moment putting upon her brother alone the obligation of the draft, to stop the further progress of such dangerous inference.

Hastily, therefore, she wrote to him the following note:

To Sir Sedley Clarendel, Bart.

SIR,

Some particular business compelled my brother so abruptly to quit Tunbridge, that he could not have the honour to first wait upon you with his thanks for the loan you so unexpectedly put into his hands; by mine, however, all will be restored to-morrow morning, except his gratitude for your kindness.

I am, sir, in both our names, your obliged humble servant, CAMILLA TYROLD.

MOUNT PLEASANT, Thursday Evening.

She now waited till she was summoned down stairs to the carriage, and then gave her little letter to a servant, whom she desired to deliver it to Sir Sedley's man.

Sir Sedley did not accompany them to the Rooms, but promised to follow.

Camilla, on her arrival, with palpitating pleasure, looked round for Edgar. She did not, however, see him. She was accosted directly by the Major; who, as usual, never left her, and whose assiduity to seek her favour seemed increased.

She next joined Mrs. Berlinton; but still she saw nothing of Edgar. Her eyes incessantly looked towards the door, but the object they sought never met them.

When Sir Sedley entered, he joined the group of Mrs. Berlinton.

Camilla tried to look at him and to speak to him with her customary civility and chearfulness, and nearly succeeded; while in him she observed only an expressive attention, without any marks of presumption.

Thus began and thus ended the evening. Edgar never appeared.

Camilla was in the utmost amaze and deepest vexation. Why did he stay away? was his wrath so great at her own failure the preceding night, that he purposely avoided her? what, also, could she do with Sir Sedley? how meet him the next morning without the draft she had now promised?'

In this state of extreme chagrin, when she retired to her chamber, she found the following letter upon her table:

To Miss Camilla Tyrold.

Can you think of such a trifle? or deem wealth so truly contemptible, as to deny it all honourable employment? Ah, rather, enchanting Camilla! deign further to aid me in dispensing it worthily!

SEDLEY CLARENDEL.

Camilla now was touched, penetrated, and distressed beyond what she had been in any former time. She looked upon this letter as a positive intimation of the most serious designs; and all his good qualities, as painted by Mrs. Arlbery, with the very singular obligation she owed to him, rose up formidably to support the arguments and remonstrances of that lady; though every feeling of her heart, every sentiment of her mind, and every wish of her soul, opposed their smallest weight.

Chapter XVI

An Helper

The next morning, as Camilla had accompanied Mrs. Arlbery, in earnest discourse, from her chamber to the hall, she heard the postman say Miss Tyrold as he gave in a letter. She seized it, saw the hand-writing of Lionel, and ran eagerly into the parlour, which was empty, to read it, in some hopes it would at least contain an acknowledgment of the draft, that might be shewn to Sir Sedley, and relieve her from the pain of continuing the principal in such an affair.

The letter, however, was merely a sportive rhapsody, beginning; My dear Lady Clarendel; desiring her favour and protection, and telling her he had done what he could for her honour, by adding two trophies to the victorious car of Hymen, driven by the happy Baronet.

Wholly at a loss how to act, she sat ruminating over this letter, till Mrs. Arlbery opened the door. Having no time to fold it, and dreading her seeing the first words, she threw her handkerchief, which was then in her hand, over it, upon the table, hoping presently to draw it away unperceived.

'My dear friend,' said Mrs. Arlbery, 'I am glad to see you a moment alone. Do you know any thing of Mandlebert?'

'No!' answered she affrighted, lest any evil had happened.

'Did he not take leave of you at the Rooms the other night?'

'Leave of me? is he gone any where?'

'He has left Tunbridge.'

Camilla remained stupified.

'Left it,' she continued, 'without the poor civility of a call, to ask if you had any letters or messages for Hampshire.'

Camilla coloured high; she felt to her heart this evident coldness, and she knew it to be still more marked than Mrs. Arlbery could divine; for he was aware she wished particularly to speak with him; and though she had failed in her appointment, he had not inquired why.

'And this is the man for whom you would relinquish all mankind? this is the grateful character who is to render you insensible to every body?'

The disturbed mind of Camilla needed not this speech; her debt to Sir Sedley, cast wholly upon herself by the thoughtless Lionel; her inability to pay it, the impressive lines the Baronet had addressed to her, and the cruel and pointed indifference of Edgar, all forcibly united to make her wish, at this moment, her heart at her own disposal.

In a few minutes, the voice of Sir Sedley, gaily singing, caught her ear. He was entering the hall, the street door being open. She started up; Mrs. Arlbery would have detained her, but she could not endure to encounter him, and without returning his salutation, or listening to his address, crossed him in the hall, and flew up stairs.

There, however, she had scarcely taken breath, when she recollected the letter which she had left upon the table, and which the afflicting intelligence that Edgar had quitted Tunbridge, had made her forget she had received. In a terror immeasurable, lest her handkerchief should be drawn aside, and betray the first line, she re-descended the stairs, and hastily entered the room. Her shock was then inexpressible. The handkerchief, which her own quick motion in retiring had displaced, was upon the floor, the letter was in full view; the eyes of Sir Sedley were fixed upon his own name, with a look indefinable between pleasure and impertinence, and Mrs. Arlbery was laughing with all her might.

She seized the letter, and was running away with it, when Mrs. Arlbery slipt out of the room, and Sir Sedley, shutting the door, half archly, half tenderly repeated, from the letter, 'My dear Lady Clarendel!'

In a perfect agony, she hid her face, exclaiming: 'O Lionel! my foolish ... cruel brother!...'

'Not foolish, not cruel, I think him,' cried Sir Sedley, taking her hand, 'but amiable ... he has done honour to my name, and he will use it, I hope, henceforth, as his own.'

'Forget, forget his flippancy,' cried she, withdrawing impatiently her hand; 'and pardon his sister's breach of engagement for this morning. I hope soon, very soon, to repair it, and I hope....'

She did not know what to add; she stopt, stammered, and then endeavoured to make her retreat.

'Do not go,' cried he, gently detaining her; 'incomparable Camilla! I have a thousand things to say to you. Will you not hear them?'

'No!' cried she, disengaging herself; 'no, no, no! I can hear nothing!...'

'Do you fascinate then,' said he, half reproachfully, 'like the rattlesnake, only to destroy?'

Camilla conceived this as alluding to her recent encouragement, and stood trembling with expectation it would be followed by a claim upon her justice.

But Sir Sedley, who was far from any meaning so pointed, lightly added; 'What thus agitates the fairest of creatures? can she fear a poor captive entangled in the witchery of her loveliness, and only the more enslaved the more he struggles to get free?'

'Let me go,' cried she, eager to stop him; 'I beseech you, Sir Sedley!'

'All beauteous Camilla!' said he, retreating yet still so as to intercept her passage; 'I am bound to submit; but when may I see you again?'

'At any time,' replied she hastily; 'only let me pass now!'

'At any time! adorable Camilla! be it then to-night! be it this evening!... be it at noon!... be it....'

'No, no, no, no!' cried she, panting with shame and alarm; 'I do not mean at any time! I spoke without thought ... I mean....'

'Speak so ever and anon,' cried he, 'if thought is my enemy! This evening then....'

He stopt, as if irresolute how to finish his phrase, but soon added: 'Adieu, till this evening, adieu!' and opened the door for her to pass.

Triumph sat in his eye; exultation spoke in every feature; yet his voice betrayed constraint, and seemed checked, as if from fear of entrusting it with his sentiments. The fear, however, was palpably not of diffidence with respect to Camilla, but of indecision with regard to himself.

Camilla, almost sinking with shame now hung back, from a dread of leaving him in this dangerous delusion. She sat down, and in a faltering voice, said: 'Sir Sedley! hear me, I beg!...'

'Hear you?' cried he, gallantly casting himself at her feet; 'yes! from the fervid rays of the sun, to the mild lustre of the moon!... from....'

A loud knock at the street door, and a ringing at the same time at the bell, made him rise, meaning to shut again the door of the parlour, but he was prevented by the entrance of a man into the hall, calling out, in a voice that reached to every part of the house, 'An express for Miss Camilla Tyrold.'

Camilla started up, concluding it some strange intelligence concerning Edgar. But a letter was put into her hand, and she saw it was the writing of Lavinia.

It was short, but most affectionate. It told her that news was just arrived from the Continent, which gave reason for hourly expectation of their cousin Lynmere at Cleves, in consequence of which Sir Hugh was assembling all the family to receive him. She was then, with her father, going thither from Etherington, where the restored health of her uncle had, for a week past, enabled them to reside, and she was ordered to send off an express to Tunbridge, to beg Camilla would prepare immediately for the post-chaise of Sir Hugh, which would be sent for her, with the Cleves housekeeper, and reach Mount Pleasant within a few hours after this notice.

A hundred questions assailed Camilla when she had run over this letter, the noise of the express having brought Mrs. Arlbery and the Dennels into the parlour.

She produced the letter, and putting it in the hands of Mrs. Arlbery, relieved her painful confusion, by quitting the room without again meeting the eyes of Sir Sedley.

She could make no preparation, however, for her journey, from mingled desire and fear of an explanation with the Baronet before her departure.

Again, therefore, in a few minutes she went down; gathering courage from the horror of a mistake that might lead to so much mischief.

She found only Mrs. Arlbery in the parlour.

Involuntarily staring, 'Where,' she cried, 'is Sir Sedley?'

'He is gone,' answered Mrs. Arlbery, laughing at her earnestness; 'but no doubt you will soon see him at Cleves.'

'Then I am undone!' cried she, bursting into tears, and running back to her chamber.

Mrs. Arlbery instantly followed, and kindly inquired what disturbed her.

'O, Mrs. Arlbery!' she cried, 'lend me, I beseech you, some aid, and spare me, in pity, your raillery! Sir Sedley, I fear, greatly mistakes me; set him right, I conjure you....'

'Me, my dear? and do you think if some happy fatality is at work at this moment to force you to your good, I will come forth, like your evil genius, to counteract its operations?'

'I must write, then ... yet, in this haste, this confusion, I fear to involve rather than extricate myself!'

'Ay, write by all means; there is nothing so prettily forwards these affairs, as a correspondence between the parties undertaken to put an end to them.'

She went, laughing, out of the chamber, and Camilla, who had seized a pen, distressfully flung it from her.

What indeed could she say? he had made no direct declaration; she could give, therefore, no direct repulse; and though, through her brother's cruel want of all consideration, she was so deeply in his debt, she durst no longer promise its discharge; for the strange departure of Edgar robbed her of all courage to make to him her meditated application.

Yet to leave Sir Sedley in this errour was every way terrible. If, which still seemed very possible, from his manner and behaviour, he should check his partiality, and make the whole of what had passed end in mere public-place gallantry, she must always have the mortification to know he had considered her as ready to accept him: If, on the contrary, encouraging what he felt for her, from the belief she returned his best opinion, he should seriously demand her hand ... how could she justify the apparent attention she once paid him? and how assert, while so hopelessly his debtor, the independence to reject one who so many ways seemed to hold himself secure?

* * * * *

She was broken in upon by Mrs. Mittin, who entered full of lamentation at the intelligence she had just heard from Miss Dennel of her sudden departure; which she ended with, 'But as you are going in such haste, my dear, you must have fifty things to do, so pray now, let me help you. Come, what shall I pack up for you? Where's all your things?'

Camilla, incapable of doing any business for herself, accepted the offer.

'Well then, now where's your gowns? Bless me! what a one is here? why it's been in the dew, and then in the dust, and then in the dew again, till all the bottom must be cut off; why you can never shew it amongst your friends; it will quite bring a disgrace upon poor Tunbridge; come, I think you must give it to me; I've got a piece of muslin just like it, and I can piece it so that it won't appear; but it will never do for you again.'

Camilla was surprised; but her mind was filled with other matters, and the gown was put apart.

'What! are those all your neck handkerchiefs? why, my dear Miss Tyrold, that's a thing you want very bad indeed; why here's one you can never wear again; it wants more darning than it's worth.'

Camilla said she should have very good time to mend it at home.

'But then, my dear, you don't consider what a bad look that will have amongst your friends; what will they think of poor Tunbridge, that you should have let it go so far? why, may be they'll never let you come again; the best way will be not to let them see it; suppose I take it off your hands? I dare say they don't know your count.'

At any other time, Camilla would either have resisted these seizures, or have been diverted by the pretence that they were made only for her own benefit; but she was now glad at any rate to get rid of the care of the package.

When this was over, and Mrs. Mittin had pretty well paid herself for her trouble: 'Well, my dear,' she cried, 'and what can I do for you next? Have you paid Mrs. Tillden, and Mr. Doust, and Mr. Tent?'

These were questions that indeed roused Camilla from her reverie; she had not once thought of what she owed to the milliner, to her shoemaker, nor to her haberdasher; from all of whom she had now, through the hands of Mrs. Mittin, had various articles. She thanked her for reminding her of so necessary an attention, and said she would immediately send for the bills.

'I'll run and pay 'em for you myself,' said Mrs. Mittin; 'for they always take that kind; and as I recommended them all to you, I have a right they should know how I stand their friend; for there's many an odd service they may do me in return; so I'll go for you with all my heart; only give me the money.'

Camilla took out her purse, in which, from her debt to Sir Sedley, and perpetually current expences, there now remained but fifteen shillings of her borrowed five guineas; though latterly, she had wholly denied herself whatever did not seem an expence unavoidable. What to do she now knew not; for though all she had ordered had been trifling, she was sure it must amount to four or five guineas. She had repeatedly refused to borrow anything more of Mrs. Arlbery, always hoping every call for money would be the last; but she was too inexperienced to know, that in gay circles, and public places, the demands for wealth are endless and countless; and that oeconomy itself, which is always local, is there lavish and extravagant, compared with its character, in private scenes and retired life.

Yet was this the last moment to apply to Mrs. Arlbery upon such a subject, since it would be endowing her with fresh arms to fight the cause of Sir Sedley. She sat still, and ruminating, till Mrs. Mittin, who without scruple had taken a full inventory of the contents of the purse, exclaimed: 'La! my dear, why sure I hope that i'n't all you've got left?'

Camilla was fain to confess she had nothing more at Tunbridge.

'Well, don't be uneasy, my dear,' cried she, 'and I'll go to 'em all, and be caution for you, till you get the money.'

Camilla thanked her very sincerely, and again resumed her first opinion of her real good nature, and kindness of heart. She took her direction in London, whither she was soon to return, and promised, in a short time, to transmit the money for her to distribute, as every one of the shopkeepers went to the metropolis in the winter.

Delighted both with the praise and the commission, Mrs. Mittin took leave; and Camilla determined to employ her next quarter's allowance in paying these debts, and frankly to beg from her uncle the five guineas that were due to Mrs. Arlbery.

She then wrote an affectionate adieu to Mrs. Berlinton, intreating to hear from her at Etherington; and, while she was sealing it, Mrs. Arlbery came to embrace her, as the carriage was at the door.

Camilla, in making her acknowledgments for the kindness she had received, intermingled a petition, that at least, she would not augment, if she refused to clear the mistake of Sir Sedley.

'I believe he may safely,' she answered, 'be left to himself; though it is plain that, at this moment, he is in a difficulty as great as your own; for marriage he still resists, though he finds you resistless. I wish you mutually to be parted till ... pardon me, my fair friend ... your understandings are mutually cleared, and he is divested of what is too factitious, and you of what is too artless. Your situation is, indeed, rather whimsical; for the two mortals with whom you have to deal require treatment diametrically opposite; yet, humour them a little adroitly, and you presently gain them both. He that is proud, must be distanced; he that is vain, must be flattered. This is paying them with their own coin; but they hold no other to be current. Pride, if not humbled, degenerates into contempt; vanity, if not indulged, dissolves into indifference.'

Camilla disclaimed taking any measures with respect to either; but Mrs. Arlbery insisted the field would be won by Sir Sedley, 'who is already,' she cried, 'persuaded you have for some time encouraged him, and that now you are fully propitious....'

Camilla hastily interrupted her: 'O, Mrs. Arlbery!' she cried, 'I cannot endure this! add not to my disturbance by making it my own work!'

She then embraced her; took leave of the Dennels, and with the housekeeper of Sir Hugh set out from Tunbridge for Cleves.

END OF THE THIRD VOLUME.

VOLUME IV

Chapter I

The right Style of Arguing

Camilla was received with the most tender joy by all her family, again re-assembled at Cleves to welcome the return of young Lynmere, who was expected every hour. Sir Hugh, perfectly recovered from his late illness, and busy, notwithstanding all remonstrance, in preparation for the approaching nuptials, was in spirits that exhilarated whoever saw him. Eugenia awaited that event with gentleness, though with varying sensations; from fears, lest her personal misfortunes should prove repulsive to Clermont, and from wishes to find him resembling Melmond in talents, and Bellamy in passion and constancy.

Dr. Orkborne gave now his lessons with redoubled assiduity, from an ambition to produce to the scholastic traveller, a phenomenon of his own workmanship in a learned young female: nor were his toils less ready, nor less pleasant, for a secret surmise they would shortly end; though not till honour should be united with independence, for his recompence. But Miss Margland fretted, that this wedding would advance no London journey; and Indiana could not for a moment recover from her indignation, that the deformed and ugly Eugenia, though two years younger than herself, should be married before her. Lavinia had no thought but for the happiness of her sister; and Mr. Tyrold lamented the absence of his wife, who, alike from understanding and affection, was the only person to properly superintend this affair, but from whom Dr. Marchmont, just arrived, brought very faint hopes of a speedy return.

Eugenia, however, was not the sole care of her father, at this period. The countenance of Camilla soon betrayed, to his inquiring eyes, the inefficacy of the Tunbridge journey. But he forbore all question; and left to time or her choice to unravel, if new incidents kept alive her inquietude, or, if no incident at all had been equally prejudicial to her repose.

* * * * *

Two days after, while Camilla, still astonished by no news, nor sight of Edgar, was sitting with her sisters, and recounting to them her late adventures, and present difficulties, with Sir Sedley Clarendel, Jacob brought her, in its own superb bird-cage, the learned little bullfinch; telling her, it had been delivered to him without any message, by a man who said she had left it, by mistake, at Tunbridge; whence he had had orders to follow her with it to Cleves park.

She was much provoked thus to receive it. Mrs. Arlbery had pressed her to take it in her uncle's chaise, which she had firmly refused; and she now concluded this method was adopted, that Sir Sedley might imagine she detained it as his gift.

In drawing out, soon after, the receptacle for the bird's nourishment, she perceived, written with a pencil upon the wood, these words: 'Thou art gone then, fair fugitive! Ah! at least, fly only where thou mayst be pursued!'

This writing had not been visible till the machine was taken out to be replenished. She recollected the hand of Sir Sedley, and was now sure it was sent by himself, and could no longer, therefore, doubt his intentions being serious.

With infinite perplexity she consulted with her sisters; but, when candidly she had related, that once, to her never-ending regret, she had apparently welcomed his civilities, Eugenia pronounced her rectitude to be engaged by that error, as strongly as her gratitude by the preservation of her life, and the extraordinary service done to Lionel, not to reject the young baronet, should he make his proposals.

She heard this opinion with horror. Timid shame, and the counsel of her father, united to impede her naming the internal obstacle which she felt to be insurmountable; and, while casting up, in silence, her appealing eyes to Heaven for relief, from the intricacy in which she found herself involved, she saw Lionel galloping into the park.

She flew to meet him, and he dismounted, and led his horse, to walk with her.

She flattered herself, she might now represent the mischief he was doing, and obtain from him some redress. But he was more wild and impracticable than ever. 'Well, my dear girl,' he cried, 'when are all these betterings and worsings to take place? Numps has sent for me to see poor little Greek and Latin hobble to the altar; but, 'tis a million to one, if our noble baronet does not whisk you there before her. He's a charming fellow, faith. I had a good long confab with him this morning.'

'This morning? I hope, then, you were so good, so just, as to tell him when you mean to pay the money you have borrowed?'

'My dear child, I often think you were born but yesterday, only, by some accident, you came into the world, like Minerva, grown up and ready dressed. What makes you think I mean to pay him? Have I given him any bond?'

'A bond? Is that necessary to justice and honour?'

'If I had asked the money, you are right, my dear; I ought, then, certainly, to refund. But, as it now stands, 'tis his own affair. I have nothing to do with it: except, indeed, receiving the dear little golden boys, and making merry with them.'

'O fie, Lionel, fie!'

'Why, what had I to do with it? Do you think he would care one fig if he saw me sunk to the bottom of the Red Sea? No, my dear, no; you are the little debtor; so balance your accounts for yourself, and don't cast them upon your poor neighbours, who have full enough to settle of their own.'

Camilla was thunderstruck; 'And have you been so cruel,' she cried, 'seeing the matter in such a light, to place me in such a predicament?'

'Cruel, my dear girl? why, what will it cost you, except a dimple or two the more? And don't you know you always look best when you smile? I assure you, it's a mercy he don't see you when you are giving me one of my lectures. It disfigures you so horribly, that he'd take fright and never speak to you again.'

'What can I ever say, to make you hear me, or feel for me? Tell me, at least, what has passed this morning; and assure me that nothing new, nothing yet worse, has occurred.'

'O no, nothing at all. All is in the fairest train possible. I dare say, he'll come hither, upon the grand question, before sun-set.'

Camilla gasped for breath, and was some time before she could ask whence he drew such a conclusion.

'O, because I see he's in for it. I have a pretty good eye, my dear! He said, too, he had such a prodigious ... friendship, I think he called it, for you, that he was immeasurably happy, and all that, to be of the least service to your brother. A fine fellow, upon my word! a fine generous spark as ever I saw. He charged me to call upon him freely when I had any little embarrassment, or difficulty, or was hard run, or things of that sort. He's a fine buck, I tell you, and knows the world perfectly, that I promise you. He's none of your drivellers, none of your ignoramuses. He has the true notion of things. He's just a right friend for me. You could not have made a better match.'

Camilla, in the most solemn manner, protested herself disengaged in thought, word, and deed; and declared her fixed intention so to continue. But he only laughed at her declarations, calling them maidenly fibs; and, assuring her, the young baronet was so much in earnest, she might as well be sincere as not. 'Besides,' he added, ''tis not fair to trifle where a man behaves so handsomely and honourably. Consider the £.200!'

'I shall quite lose my senses, Lionel!' cried she, in an agony; 'I shall quite lose my senses if you speak in this manner!'

Lionel shouted aloud; 'Why, my dear girl, what is £.200 to Sir Sedley Clarendel? You talk as if he had twenty pound a-year for pin-money, like you and Lavinia, that might go with half a gown a-year, if good old Numps did not help you. Why, he's as rich as Croesus, child. Besides, he would have been quite affronted if I had talked of paying him such a trifle, for he offered me any thing I pleased. O, he knows the world, I promise you! He's none of your starched prigs. He knows life, my dear! He said, he could perfectly conceive how hard it must be to a lad of spirit, like me, to be always exact. I don't know that I ever made a more agreeable acquaintance in my life.'

Camilla was in an agitation that made him regard her, for a moment, with a serious surprise; but his natural levity soon resumed its post, and, laughing at himself for being nearly, he said, taken in, by her childish freaks, he protested he would bite no more: 'For, after all, you must not think to make a fool of me, my dear. It won't do. I'm too knowing. Do you suppose, if he had not already made up his mind to the noose, and was not sure you had made up yours to letting it be tied, he would have cared for poor me, and my scrapes? No, no; whatever he does for me, before you are married, you may set down in your own memorandum book: whatever he may please to do afterwards, I am content should be charged to poor Pillgarlick.'

He then bid her good-morrow, by the name of Lady Clarendel; and said, he would go and see if little Greek and Latin were as preposterous a prude about young Lynmere.

Camilla remained almost petrified with amazement at her own situation; and only was deterred from immediately opening her whole heart and affairs to her father, with the confidence to which his indulgence entitled him, by the impossibility of explaining her full distress without betraying her brother.

Chapter II

A Council

The next morning, Camilla, eager to try once more her influence with her brother, accompanied him into the park, and renewed her remonstrances, but with no better success; and while they were passing by a private gate, that opened to the high road, they saw Sir Sedley Clarendel driving by in his phaeton.

Lionel, bursting from his sister, opened the gate, called to Sir Sedley to give his reins to one of his servants, and brought him, not unwilling, though much surprised, into the park.

Camilla, in dismay unspeakable at this conduct, and the idea of such a meeting, had run forward instantly to hide herself in the summer-house, to avoid re-passing the gate in her way to the mansion; but her scheme was more precipitate than wise; Lionel caught a glimpse of her gown as she went into the little building, and shouted aloud: 'Look! look! Sir Sedley! there's Camilla making believe to run away from you!'

'Ah, fair fugitive!' cried the baronet, springing forward, and entering the summer-house almost as soon as herself, 'fly only thus, where you may be pursued!'

Camilla, utterly confounded, knew not where to cast her eyes, where to hide her face; and her quick-changing colour, and short-heaved breath, manifested an excess of confusion, that touched, flattered, and penetrated the baronet so deeply and so suddenly, as to put him off from all guard of consequences, and all recollection of matrimonial distaste: 'Beautiful, resistless Camilla!' he cried; 'how vain is it to struggle against your witchery! Assure me but of your clemency, and I will adore the chains that shackle me!'

Camilla, wholly overcome, by sorrow, gratitude, repentance, and shame, sunk upon a chair, and shed a torrent of tears that she even sought not to restrain. The shock of refusing one, to whose error in believing himself acceptable she had largely contributed, or the horror of yielding to him her hand, while her heart was in the possession of another, made her almost wish, at this moment, he should divine her distress, that his own pride might conclude it.

But far different from what would produce such an effect, were the feelings of pride now working in his bosom. He imagined her emotion had its source in causes the softest and most flattering. Every personal obstacle sunk before this idea, and with a seriousness in his manner he had not yet used: 'This evening, lovely Camilla,' he cried, 'let me beg, for this evening, the audience accorded me upon that which I lost at Tunbridge.'

He was then going; but Camilla, hastily rising, cried, 'Sir Sedley, I beseech ...' when Lionel capering into the little apartment, danced round it in mad ecstasy, chanting 'Lady Clarendel, Lady Clarendel, my dear Lady Clarendel!'

Camilla now was not confused alone. Sir Sedley himself could gladly have pushed him out of the building; but neither the looks of surprise and provocation of the baronet, nor the prayers nor reprimands of Camilla, could tame his wild transport. He shook hands, whether he would or not, with the one; he bowed most obsequiously, whether she would regard him or not, to the other; and still chanting the same burden, made a clamour that shook the little edifice to its foundation.

The strong taste for ridicule, that was a prominent part of the character of Sir Sedley, was soon conquered by this ludicrous behaviour, and both his amazement and displeasure ended in a hearty fit of laughter. But Camilla suffered too severely to join in the mirth; she blushed for her brother, she blushed for herself, she hung her head in speechless shame, and covered her eyes with her hand.

The noisy merriment of Lionel preventing any explanation, though rendering it every moment more necessary, Sir Sedley, repeating his request for the evening, took leave.

Camilla looked upon his departing in this manner as her sentence to misery, and was pursuing him, to decline the visit; but Lionel, seizing her two hands, swung her round the room, in defiance of her even angry expostulations and sufferings, which he neither credited nor conceived, and then skipt after the baronet himself, who was already out of the park.

She became now nearly frantic. She thought herself irretrievably in the power of Sir Sedley, and by means so forced and indelicate, that she was scarcely more afflicted at the event, than shocked by its circumstances; and though incapable to really harbour rancour against a brother she sincerely loved, she yet believed at this moment she never should forgive, nor willingly see him more.

In this state she was found by Lavinia. The history was inarticulately told, but Lavinia could give only her pity; she saw not any avenue to an honourable retreat, and thought, like Eugenia, she could now only free herself by the breach of what should be dearer to her even than happiness, her probity and honour.

Utterly inconsolable she remained, till again she heard the voice of Lionel, loudly singing in the park.

'Go to him! go to him! my dearest Lavinia,' she cried, 'and, if my peace is dear to you, prevail with him to clear up the mistakes of Sir Sedley, and to prevent his dreaded, killing visit this evening!'

Lavinia only answered by compliance; but, after an half hour's useless contest with her riotous brother, returned to her weeping sister, not merely successless with regard to her petition, but loaded with fresh ill tidings that she knew not how to impart. Lionel had only laughed at the repugnance of Camilla, which he regarded as something between childishness and affectation, and begged Lavinia to be wiser than to heed to it: 'Brother Sedley has desired me, however,' he added, 'not to speak of the matter to Numps nor my father, till he has had a little more conversation with his charmer; and he intends to call to-night as if only upon a visit to me.'

When Camilla learnt, at length, this painful end of her embassy, she gave herself up so completely to despair, that Lavinia, affrighted, ran to the house for Eugenia, whose extreme youth was no impediment, in the minds of her liberal sisters, to their belief nor reverence of her superior wisdom. Her species of education had early prepossessed them with respect for her knowledge, and her unaffected fondness for study, had fixed their opinion of her extraordinary understanding. The goodness of her heart, the evenness of her temper, and her natural turn to contemplation, had established her character alike for sanctity and for philosophy throughout the family.

She listened with the sincerest commiseration to the present state of the case: 'Certainly,' she cried, 'you cannot, in honour, now refuse him; but deal with him sincerely, and he may generously himself relinquish his claims. Write to him, my dear Camilla; tell him you grieve to afflict, yet disdain to deceive him; assure him of your perfect esteem and eternal gratitude; but confess, at once, your heart refuses to return his tenderness. Entreat him to forgive whatever he may have mistaken, and nobly to restore to you the liberty of which your obligations, without his consent, must rob you.'

To Lavinia this advice appeared infallible; but Camilla, though she felt an entanglement which fettered herself, thought it by no means sufficiently direct or clear to authorise a rejection of Sir Sedley; since, strangely as she seemed in his power, circumstances had placed her there, and not his own solicitation.

Yet to prevent a visit of which her knowledge seemed consent, and which her consent must be most seriously to authorise, she deemed as indispensable to her character, as to her fears. She hesitated, therefore, not a moment in preferring writing to a meeting; and after various conversations, and various essays, the following billet was dispatched to Clarendel Place, through the means of Molly Mill, and by her friend Tommy Hodd.

To Sir Sedley Clarendel.

I should ill return what I owe to Sir Sedley Clarendel by causing him any useless trouble I can spare him. He spoke of a visit hither this evening, when I was too much hurried to represent that it could not be received, as my brother's residence is at Etherington, and my father and my uncle have not the honour to be known to Sir Sedley. For me, my gratitude must ever be unalterable; and where accident occasions a meeting, I shall be most happy to express it; but I have nothing to say, nothing to offer, that could recompense one moment of Sir Sedley's time given voluntarily to such a visit.

CAMILLA TYROLD.

Ill as this letter satisfied her, she could devise nothing better; but though her sisters had both thought it too rigorous, she would not risk anything gentler.

During the dinner, they all appeared absent and dejected; but Sir Hugh attributed it to the non-arrival of Clermont, in watching for whom his own time was completely occupied, by examining two weather-cocks, and walking from one to the other, to see if they agreed, or how they changed; Indiana was wholly engrossed in consultations with Miss Margland, upon the most becoming dress for a bride's maid; and Mr. Tyrold, having observed that his three girls had spent the morning together, concluded Camilla had divulged to them her unhappy perplexity, and felt soothed himself in considering she had soothers so affectionate and faithful.

Early in the evening Tommy Hodd arrived, and Molly Mill brought Camilla the following answer of Sir Sedley.

Miss Camilla Tyrold.

Ah! what in this lower sphere can be unchequered, when even a correspondence with the most lovely of her sex, brings alarm with its felicity? Must I come, then, to Cleves, fair Insensible, but as a visitor to Mr. Lionel? Have you taken a captive only to see him in fetters? Allured a victim merely to behold him bleed? Ah! tomorrow, at least, permit the audience that to-day is denied, and at your feet, let your slave receive his doom.

SEDLEY CLARENDEL.

Camilla turned cold. She shrunk from a remonstrance she conceived she had merited, and regarded herself to be henceforth either culpable or unhappy. Unacquainted with the feminine indulgence which the world, by long prescription, grants to coquetry, its name was scarcely known to her; and she saw in its own native egotism the ungenerous desire to please, where she herself was indifferent, and anticipated from Sir Sedley reproach, if not contempt. No sophistications of custom had warped the first innocence of her innate sense of right, and to trifle with the feelings of another for any gratification of her own, made success bring a blush to her integrity, not exultation to her vanity.

The words victim and bleeding, much affected the tender Lavinia, while those of fetters, captive, and insensible, satisfied the heroic Eugenia that Sir Sedley deserved the hand of her sister; but neither of them spoke.

'You say nothing?' cried Camilla, turning paler and paler, and sitting down lest she should fall.

They both wept and embraced her, and Eugenia said, if, indeed, she could not conquer her aversion, she saw no way to elude the baronet, but by openly confessing her repugnance, in the conversation he demanded.

Camilla saw not less strongly the necessity of being both prompt and explicit; but how receive Sir Sedley at Cleves? and upon what pretence converse with him privately? Even Lionel the next day was to return to the university, though his presence, if he staid, would, in all probability, but add to every difficulty.

At length, they decided, that the conference should take place at the Grove; and to prevent the threatened visit of the next day, Camilla wrote the following answer:

To Sir Sedley Clarendel.

I should be grieved, indeed, to return my obligations to Sir Sedley Clarendel by meriting his serious reproach; yet I cannot have the honour of seeing him at Cleves, since my brother is immediately quitting it for Oxford. As soon as I hear Mrs. Arlbery is again at the Grove, I shall wait upon her, and always be most happy to assure Sir Sedley of my gratitude, which will be as lasting as it is sincere.

CAMILLA TYROLD.

Though wretched in this strange state of things, she knew not how to word her letter more positively, since his own, notwithstanding its inferences, had so much more the style of florid gallantry than plain truth. Molly Mill undertook that Tommy Hodd should carry it early the next morning.

* * * * *

Lionel was so enraged at the non-appearance of the young baronet at night, that Camilla was compelled to confess she had promised to see him, and to give him his answer at Mrs. Arlbery's. He was out of humour, nevertheless, lest Sir Sedley should be affronted by the delay, and feared that the best match in the whole county would prove abortive, from his sister's foolish trimmings, and silly ignorance of life.

Chapter III

A Proposal of Marriage

The increasing depression of Camilla, and the melancholy of her sympathising sisters, though still attributed to the adverse wind by the compass-watching baronet, escaped not the notice of Mr. Tyrold; who, alarmed for the peace of his daughter, determined to watch for the first quiet opportunity of investigating her actual situation.

Lionel, after breakfast, the next morning, was obliged to relinquish waiting for Clermont, and to set off for Oxford. He contrived to whisper to Camilla, that he hoped she would be a good girl at last, and not play the fool; but, finding she only sighed, he laughed at her calamitious state, in becoming mistress of fifteen thousand per annum, only by the small trouble of running over a short ceremony; and, assuring her he would assist her off with part of the charge, if it were too heavy for her, bid her inform him in time of the propitious day.

Camilla, shortly after, saw from her window, galloping full speed across the park to the house, Major Cerwood. She suspected her tormenting brother to have been again at work; nor was she mistaken. He had met with the Major at the hotel at Tunbridge, while his spirits, always violent, were in a state of almost intoxication of delight, at the first idea of such an accession to his powers of amusement, as a new brother rolling in immense wealth, which he already considered as nearly at his own disposal. High wrought, therefore, for what he deemed good sport, he confirmed what he had asserted at the ball at Northwick, of the expectations of Camilla from Sir Hugh, by relating the public fact, of her having been announced, to the family and neighbourhood, for his uncle's heiress, at ten years of age; and only sinking, in his account, the revocation made so soon after in favour of Eugenia. To this, he added his advice, that no time was to be lost, as numberless new suitors were likely to pursue her from Tunbridge.

The Major, upon alighting, inquired for Sir Hugh, deeming Mr. Tyrold of little consequence, since it was not from him Camilla was to inherit her fortune.

The baronet, as usual, was watching the winds and the clouds; but, concluding whoever came would bring some news from Clermont, received the Major with the utmost cordiality, saying: 'I see, sir, you are a stranger; by which I suppose you to be just come from abroad; where, I hope, you left all well?'

'I am just come, sir,' answered the Major, 'from Tunbridge, where I had the honour, through my acquaintance with Mrs. Arlbery, of meeting daily with your charming niece; an honour, sir, which must cause all the future happiness or misery of my life.'

He then made a declaration, in form, of the most ardent passion for Camilla; mentioned his family, which was an honourable one; talked of his expectations with confidence, though vaguely; and desired to leave the disposition of the settlement wholly to the baronet; who, he hoped, would not refuse to see his elder brother, a gentleman of fortune in Lincolnshire, who would have the honour to wait upon him, at any time he would be so good as to appoint, upon this momentous affair.

Sir Hugh heard this harangue with consternation. The Major was in the prime of life, his person was good, his speech was florid, his air was assured, and his regimentals were gay. Not a doubt of his success occurred to the baronet; who saw, in one blow, the darling scheme of his old age demolished, in the deprivation of Camilla.

The Major impatiently waited for an answer; but Sir Hugh was too much disordered to frame one; he walked up and down the room, muttering in a desponding manner, to himself, 'Lord, help us! what a set of poor weak mortals we are, we poor men! The best schemes and plans in the world always coming to nothing before we can bring them about! I'll never form another while I live, for the sake of this one warning. Nobody knows, next, but what Clermont will be carrying off Eugenia to see foreign parts! and then comes some other of these red-coats to take away Indiana; and, after doing all for the best so long, I may be left all alone, except just for Mrs. Margland and the Doctor! that I don't take much pleasure in, Lord help me! except as a Christian, which I hope is no sin.'

At length, endeavouring to compose himself, he sat down, and said, 'So you are come, sir, to take away from me my own particular little niece? which is a hard thing upon an uncle, intending her to live with him. However, I don't mean to find fault; but I can tell you this one thing, sir, which I beg you to remember; which is, if you don't make her happy, you'll break my heart! For she's what I love the best in the world, little as I've made it appear, by not leaving her a shilling. For which sake, however, I can't but respect you the more for coming after her, instead of Eugenia.'

'Sir?' cried the Major, amazed.

'The other two chaps,' continued he, 'that came about us not long ago, wanted to make their court to Eugenia and Indiana; as well as another that came to the house when I was ill, in the same coat as yourself, by what I can gather from the description; but never a one has come to Camilla yet, except yourself, because my brother can spare her but a trifle, having another young girl to provide for, besides Lionel; which is the most expensive of them all, poor boy! never having enough, by the reason Oxford is so dear, as I suppose.'

The Major now wore an air of surprise and uneasiness that Sir Hugh began to observe, but attributed to his unpleasant reception of his proposals. He begged his pardon, therefore, and again assured him of his respect for a choice so little mercenary, which he looked upon as a mark of a good heart.

The Major, completely staggered, and suspecting the information of Lionel to be ill grounded, if not purposely deluding, entreated his permission to wait upon him again; and offered for the present to take leave.

Sir Hugh, in a melancholy voice, said, he would first summon his niece, as he could not answer it to his conscience preventing the meeting, unless she gave him leave.

He then rang the bell, and told Jacob to call Camilla.

Major Cerwood was excessively distressed. To retreat seemed impossible; yet to connect himself without fortune, when he thought he was addressing a rich heiress, was a turn of fate he scarcely knew how either to support or to parry. All that, in this haste, he could resolve, was, to let the matter pass for the moment, and then insist upon satisfaction from Lionel, either in clearing up the mistake, or taking upon himself its blame.

When Camilla appeared, the disturbance of Sir Hugh still augmented; and he could hardly articulate, 'My dear, in the case you are willing to leave your family, here's a gentleman come to make his addresses to you; which I think it right you should know, though how I shall struggle through it, if I lose you, is more than my poor weak head can tell; for what shall I do without my dear little girl, that I thought to make the best comfort of my old age? which, however, I beg you not to think of, in case this young Captain's more agreeable.'

'Ah! my dear uncle!' cried she, 'your Camilla can never return half the comfort she receives from you! keep me with you still, and ever! I am much obliged to Major Cerwood. I beg him to accept my sincerest thanks; but to pardon me, when I assure him, they are all I have to offer him.'

Repulse was not new to the Major; who, in various country towns, had sought to retrieve his affairs by some prudent connection; his pride, however, had never so little suffered as on the present occasion, for his apprehension of error or imposition had removed from him all thought of even the possibility of a refusal; which, now, therefore, unexpectedly and joyfully obviated his embarrassment, and enabled him to quit the field by an honourable retreat. He bowed profoundly, called himself, without knowing what he said, the most unhappy of men; and, without risking one solicitation, or a moment for repentance, hastily took leave, with intention, immediately, to demand an explanation of Lionel.

But he had not escaped a mile from the house, ere he gave up that design, from anticipating the ridicule that might follow it. To require satisfaction for a young lady's want of fortune, however reasonable, would always be derided as ludicrous. He resolved, therefore, quietly to put up with the rejection; and to gather his next documents concerning the portion of a fair damsel, from authority better to be relied upon than that of a brother.

Sir Hugh, for some time, discovered not that he had retired. Enchanted by so unexpected a dismission, his favourite scheme of life seemed accorded to him, and he pressed Camilla to his bosom, in a transport of joy. 'We shall live together, now, I hope,' he cried, 'without any of these young chaps coming in again to part us. Not that I would object to your marrying, my dear girl, if it was with a relation, like Eugenia, or, with a neighbour, like Indiana, if it had not been for its going off; but to see you taken away from me by a mere stranger, coming from distant parts, and knowing nothing of any of us, is a thing that makes my heart ache but to think of; so I hope it will happen no more; for these trials do no good to my recovery.'

Turning round, then, with a view to say something consolatory to the Major, he was seriously concerned to find him departed. 'I can't say,' he cried, 'I had any intention to send him off so short, his meaning not being bad, considering him in the light of a person in love; which is a time when a man has not much thought, except for himself, by what I can gather.'

He then proposed a walk, to watch if Clermont were coming. The wind, he acknowledged, was indeed contrary; but, he did not doubt, upon such a particular occasion, his good lad would not mind such difficulties.

Chapter IV

A Bull-Dog

Sir Hugh called upon his other nieces to join him; purposing to stroll to the end of a lane which led to the London road.

Camilla accompanied the party in the most mournful silence. The assuming letter she had received; the interview she should have to sustain; and her apparent dependance upon Sir Sedley, sinking her into complete despondence.

When they came to the high road, Sir Hugh made a stop, and bid every body look sharp.

A horseman was seen advancing full gallop. By his figure he appeared to be young; by his pace, in uncommon speed.

'That's him,' cried Sir Hugh, striking his stick upon the ground, and smiling most complacently; 'I said he would not mind the wind, my dear Eugenia! what's the wind, or the waves either, to a lover? which is a thing, however, that I won't talk about; so don't be ashamed, my dear girl, nobody knowing what we mean.'

Eugenia looked down, deeply colouring, and much regretting the lameness that prevented her running back, to avoid so public and discountenancing a meeting.

The horseman now came up to them, and was preparing to turn down the lane; when, all at once, they perceived him to be Edgar Mandlebert.

He had left Tunbridge in a manner not more abrupt than comfortless. His disappointment in the failure of Camilla at the Rooms had been as bitter, as his expectations from the promised conference had been animated. When Lionel appeared, he inquired if his sister were absent from illness.... No; she was only writing a letter. To take this moment for such a purpose, be the letter what it might, seemed sporting with his curiosity and warm interest in her affairs: and he went back, mortified and dejected, to his lodgings; where, just arrived by the stage, he found a letter from Dr. Marchmont, acquainting him with his return to his rectory. In this suspensive state of mind, to cast himself upon his sagacious friend seemed a relief the most desirable: but, while considering whether first to claim from Camilla her promised communication, the voice of Lionel issuing from the room of Major Cerwood, struck his ears. He darted forth, and accompanied the youth to his horse, who was setting out upon some expedition, in the dark; and then received information, under the pretence of great secrecy, that Major Cerwood was going immediately to ask leave of absence, and proceed straight to Hampshire, with his final proposals of marriage with Camilla. He now concluded this was the subject upon which she had meant to consult with him; but delicacy, pride, and hope all combated his interference. He determined even to avoid her, till the answer should be given. 'I must owe her hand,' cried he, 'to her heart, not to a contest such as this: and, if impartially and unbiassed, the Major is refused, no farther cruel doubt, no torturing hesitation, shall keep me another minute from her feet!' With the dawn, therefore, he set out for Hampshire; but, fixed to avoid Cleves, till he could learn that the Major's visit were over, he devoted his mornings to rides, and his evenings to Dr. Marchmont, till now, a mile or two from the Park, he had met the Major himself, and concluded the acceptance or the rejection decided. They merely touched their hats as they passed each other; and he instantly took the route which the Major was quitting.

In the excess of his tribulation, he was galloping past the whole group, without discerning one of its figures; when Sir Hugh called out, 'Why it's young Mr. Edgar! So now we've walked all this way for nothing! and Clermont may be still at Jericho, or at Rome, for anything we know to the contrary!'

Edgar stopt short. He felt himself shiver at sight of Camilla, but dismounted, gave his horse to his groom, and joined the party.

Eugenia recovering, now fearlessly looked up; but Camilla, struck and affected, shook in every limb, and was forced to hold by Lavinia.

Edgar called upon his utmost presence of mind to carry him through what he conceived to be a final trial. He spoke to Sir Hugh, and compelled himself to speak separately to every one else; but, when he addressed Camilla, to whom he said something not very distinctly, about Tunbridge, she curtsied to him slightly, and turned away, without making any answer. Her mind, taking suddenly a quick retrospection of all that had passed between them, presented him to her view as uncertain and delusive; and, casting upon him, internally, the whole odium of her present distress, and her feelings were so indignant, that, in her present desperate state, she deemed it beneath her to disguise them, either from himself or the world.

Edgar, to whose troubled imagination everything painted his rival, concluded the Major had been heard with favour; and his own adverse counsel was now recollected with resentment.

Sir Hugh, far more fatigued by his disappointment than by his walk, said he should go no further, as he found it in vain to expect Clermont; and accepted the arm of Edgar to aid his stick in helping him home.

Camilla, still leaning upon Lavinia, mounted a little bank, which she knew Sir Hugh could not ascend, that she might walk on where Edgar could not join her; involuntarily ejaculating, 'Lavinia! if you would avoid deceit and treachery, look at a man as at a picture, which tells you only the present moment! Rely upon nothing of time to come! They are not like us, Lavinia. They think themselves free, if they have made no verbal profession; though they may have pledged themselves by looks, by actions, by attentions, and by manners, a thousand, and a thousand times!'

Edgar observed her avoidance with the keenest apprehension; and, connecting it with her failure at the Rooms, imagined the Major had now influenced her to an utter aversion of him.

Sir Hugh meanwhile, though wholly unheard, related, in a low voice, to Edgar, the history of his preparations for Clermont; begging him, however, to take no notice of them to Eugenia: and, then, adding, 'Very likely, Mr. Edgar, you are just come from Tunbridge? and, if so, you may have met with that young Captain that has been with us this morning; who, I understand to be a Major?'

Edgar was thrown into the utmost trepidation; the artless openness of Sir Hugh gave him every reason to suppose he should immediately gather full intelligence, and all his peace and all his hopes might hang upon another word. He could only bow to the question; but before Sir Hugh could go on, a butcher's boy, who was riding by, from a wanton love of mischief, gave a signal to his attending bull-dog, to attack the old spaniel that accompanied Sir Hugh.

Sustained by his master many a year, the proud old favourite, though unequal to the combat, disdained to fly; and the fierce bull-dog would presently have demolished him, had not Edgar, recovering all his vigour from his earnest desire to rescue an animal so dear to Sir Hugh, armed himself with the baronet's stick, and thrust it dexterously across the jaws of this intended antagonist.

Nothing, however, could withstand the fangs of the bull-dog; they soon severed it, and, again, he made at the spaniel; but Edgar rushed between them, with no other weapons than the broken fragments of the stick: and, while the baronet and Eugenia screamed out to old Rover to return to them, and Lavinia, with more readiness of common sense, exerted the fullest powers of which her gentle voice was capable, to conjure the wicked boy to call off his dog, Camilla, who was the last to look round at this scene, only turned about as the incensed and disappointed bull-dog, missing his object, aimed at Edgar himself. Roused at once from her sullen calm to the most agonising sensibility, every thing and every body, herself most of all, were forgotten in the sight of his danger; and, with a piercing shriek, she darted down the bank, and arrived at the tremendous spot, at the same instant that the more useful exhortations of Lavinia, had induced the boy to withdraw the fierce animal; who, with all his might, and all his fury, obeyed the weak whistle of a little urchin he had been bred to love and respect, for bringing him his daily food.

Camilla perceived not if the danger were impending, or over; gasping, pale, and agitated, she caught Mandlebert by the arm, and, in broken accents, half pronounced, 'O Edgar!... are you hurt?'

The revulsion that had operated in her mind took now its ample turn in that of Mandlebert; he could hardly trust his senses, hardly believe he existed; yet he felt the pressure of her hand upon his arm, and saw in her countenance terror the most undisguised, and tenderness that went straight to his soul. 'Is it Camilla,' he cried, 'who thus speaks to me?... Is not my safety or my destruction alike indifferent to Camilla?'

'O no! O no!' cried she, scarce conscious she answered at all, till called to recollection by his own changed looks; changed from incredulity and amazement to animation that lightened up every feature, to eyes that shot fire. Abashed, astonished, ashamed, she precipitately drew away her hand, and sought quietly to retire.

But Edgar was no longer master of himself; he conceived he was on a pinnacle, whence he could only, and without any gradation, turn to happiness or despair. He followed her, trembling and uncertain, his joy fading into alarm at her retreat, his hope transforming into apprehension at her resumed coldness of demeanor. 'Do you repent,' he cried, 'that you have shewn me a little humanity?... will the Major ... the happy Major!... be offended you do less than detest me?'

'The Major!' repeated she, looking back, surprised, 'can you think the Major has any influence with me?'

'Ah, Heaven!' he cried, 'what do you say!...'

Enchanted, affrighted, bewildered, yet silent, she hurried on; Edgar could not forget himself more than a moment; he forbore, therefore, to follow, and, though with a self-denial next to torture, returned to Sir Hugh, to whom his arm was doubly necessary, from the scene he had just witnessed, and the loss of his stick.

The butcher's boy and his bull-dog were decamped; and the baronet and Eugenia were rivalling each other in fondling the rescued spaniel, and in pouring thanks and praise unlimited upon Edgar.

They then walked back as before; and, as soon as they re-entered the mansion, the female party went upstairs, and Sir Hugh, warmly shaking Edgar by the hand, said: 'My dear Mr. Edgar, this is one of the happiest days of my life, except just that of my nephew's coming over, which it is but right to put before it. But here, first, my dear Camilla's refused that young Captain, who would have carried her the Lord knows where, immediately, as I make no doubt; and next, I've saved the life of my poor old Rover, by the means of your good-nature.'

'Refused?' cried Edgar; 'my dear Sir Hugh!--did you say refused?'

Sir Hugh innocently gratified him with the repetition of the word, but begged him not to mention it, 'For fear,' he said, 'it should hurt the young man when he falls in love somewhere else; which I heartily hope he will do soon, poor gentleman! for the sake of its not fretting him.'

'Miss Camilla, then, has refused him?' again repeated Edgar, with a countenance that, to any man but the baronet, must have betrayed his whole soul.

'Yes, poor gentleman! this very morning; for which I am thankful enough: for what do we know of those young officers, who may all be sent to the East Indies, or Jamaica, every day of their lives? Not but what I have the proper pity for him, which, I hope, is all that can be expected.'

Edgar walked about the room, in a perturbation of hope, fear, and joy, that disabled him from all further appearance of attention. He wished to relate this transaction to Dr. Marchmont, yet dreaded any retarding advice; he languished to make Camilla herself the sole mistress of his destiny: the interest she had shewn for his safety seemed to admit but one interpretation; and, finally, he resolved to stay at Cleves till he could meet with her alone.

Camilla had not uttered a word after the adventure of the bull-dog. The smallest idea that she could excite the least emotion in Edgar, brought a secret rapture to her heart, that, at any former period, would alone have sufficed to render her happy: but, at this instant of entanglement with another, she revolted from the indulgence of such pleasure; and instead of dwelling, as she would have done before, on the look, the accent, the manner, that were susceptible, by any construction, of partiality, she checked every idea that did not represent Edgar as unstable and consistent; and sought, with all her power, to regard him as Mrs. Arlbery had painted him, and to believe him, except in a few casual moments of caprice, insensible and hard of heart.

Yet this entanglement, in which, scarce knowing how, she now seemed to be entwined with Sir Sedley, grew more and more terrific; and when she considered that her sisters themselves thought her independence gone, and her honour engaged, she was seized with so much wonderment, how it had all been brought about, that her understanding seemed to play her false, and she believed the whole a dream.

Chapter V

An Oak Tree

When the sisters were summoned down stairs to dinner, planted at the door, ready to receive them at their entrance, stood Edgar. Lavinia and Eugenia addressed him as usual; but Camilla could not speak, could not return his salutation, could not look at him. She sat hastily down in her accustomed place by her uncle, and even the presence of her father scarcely restrained her tears, as she contrasted the hopeless uncertainties of Edgar, with the perilous pursuit of Sir Sedley.

Edgar, for the first time, saw her avoidance without suspecting that it flowed from repugnance. The interest she had shewn for his safety was still bounding in his breast, and as, from time to time, he stole a glance at her, and observed her emotion, his heart whispered him the softest hopes, that soon the most perfect confidence would make every feeling reciprocal.

But these hopes were not long without alloy; he soon discerned something that far exceeded what could give him pleasure in her perturbation; he read in it not merely hurry and alarm, but suffering and distress.

He now ventured to look at her no more; his confidence gave place to pity; he saw she was unhappy, and breathed no present wish but to relieve and console her.

When the dessert was served, she was preparing to retire; but she caught the eye of her father, and saw she should not long be alone; she re-seated herself, therefore, in haste, to postpone, at least, his scrutiny.

Every body, at length, arose, and Sir Hugh proposed that they should all walk in the park, during his nap, but keep close to the pales, that they might listen for all passengers, in case of Clermont's coming.

To this, also, Camilla could make no objection, and they set out. She took an arm of each sister, and indulged the heaviness of her heart in not uttering a word.

They had not gone far, when a servant ran after Mr. Tyrold with a pacquet, just arrived, by a private hand, from Lisbon. He returned to read it in his own room; Lavinia and Eugenia accompanied him to hear its contents, and Camilla, for the first time, seemed the least affectionate of his daughters; she durst not encounter him but in the mixt company of all the house; she told Lavinia to make haste back with the news, and took the arm of Indiana.

The compulsion of uninteresting discourse soon became intolerable; and no longer chained to the party by the awe of her father, she presently left Indiana to Miss Margland, and perceiving that Edgar was conversing with Dr. Orkborne, said she would wait for her sisters; and, turning a little aside, sat down upon a bench under a large oak.

Here her painful struggle and unwilling forbearance ended; she gave free vent to her tears, and thought herself the most wretched of human beings; she found her heart, her aching heart, more than ever devoted to Mandlebert, filled with his image, revering his virtues, honouring even his coldness, from a persuasion she deserved not his affection, and sighing solely for the privilege to consign herself to his remembrance for life, though unknown to himself, and unsuspected by the world. The very idea of Sir Sedley was horror to her; she felt guilty to have involved herself in an intercourse so fertile of danger; she thought over, with severest repentance, her short, but unjustifiable deviation from that transparent openness, and undesigning plainness of conduct, which her disposition as much as her education ought to have rendered unchangeable. To that, alone, was owing all her actual difficulty, for to that alone was owing her own opinion of any claim upon her justice. How dearly, she cried, do I now pay for the unthinking plan with which I risked the peace of another, for the re-establishment of my own! She languished to throw herself into the arms of her father, to unbosom to him all her errors and distresses, and owe their extrication to his wisdom and kindness. She was sure he would be unmoved by the glare of a brilliant establishment, and that far from desiring her to sacrifice her feelings to wealth and shew, he would himself plead against the alliance when he knew the state of her mind, and recommend to her, so circumstanced, the single life, in the true spirit of Christian philosophy and moderation: but all was so closely interwoven in the affairs and ill conduct of her brother, that she believed herself engaged in honour to guard the fatal secret, though hazarding by its concealment impropriety and misery.

These afflicting ruminations were at length interrupted by the sound of feet; she took her handkerchief from her eyes, expecting to see her sisters; she was mistaken, and beheld Mandlebert.

She started and rose; she strove to chace the tears from her eyes without wiping them, and asked what he had done with Dr. Orkborne?

'You are in grief!' cried he in a tone of sympathy; 'some evil has befallen you!... let me ask....'

'No; I am only waiting for my sisters. They have just received letters from Lisbon.'

'You have been weeping! you are weeping now! why do you turn away from me? I will not obtrusively demand your confidence ... yet, could I give you the most distant idea what a weight it might remove from my mind, ... you would find it difficult to deny yourself the pleasure of doing so much good!'

The tears of Camilla now streamed afresh. Words so kind from Edgar, the cold, the hard-hearted Edgar, surprised and overset her; yet she endeavoured to hide her face, and made an effort to pass him.

'Is not this a little unkind?' cried he, gravely; 'however, I have no claim to oppose you.'

'Unkind!' she repeated, and involuntarily turning to him, shewed a countenance so disconsolate, that he lost his self-control, and taking her reluctant hand, said: 'O Camilla! torture me no longer!'

Almost transfixed with astonishment, she looked at him for a moment in a speechless wonder; but the interval of doubt was short; the character of Edgar, for unalienable steadiness, unalterable honour, was fixed in her mind, like 'truths from holy writ,' and she knew, with certainty incontrovertible, that his fate was at her disposal, from the instant he acknowledged openly her power over his feelings.

Every opposite sensation, that with violence the most ungovernable could encounter but to combat, now met in her bosom, elevating her to rapture, harrowing her with terror, menacing even her understanding. The most exquisite wish of her heart seemed accorded at a period so nearly too late for its acceptance, that her faculties, bewildered, confused, deranged, lost the capacity of clearly conceiving if still she were a free agent or not.

He saw her excess of disorder with alarm; he sought to draw her again to her seat; but she put her hand upon her forehead, and leant it against the bark of the tree.

'You will not speak to me!' cried he; 'you will not trust me! shall I call you cruel? No! for you are not aware of the pain you inflict, the anguish you make me suffer! the generosity of your nature would else, unbidden, impulsively interfere.'

'You suffer! you!' cried she, again distressfully, almost incredulously, looking at him, while her hands were uplifted with amazement: 'I thought you above any suffering! superior to all calamity!... almost to all feeling!...'

'Ah, Camilla! what thus estranges you from candor? from justice? what is it can prompt you to goad thus a heart which almost from its first beating....'

He stopt, desirous to check himself; while penetrated by his softness, and ashamed of what, in the bitterness of her spirit, she had pronounced, she again melted into tears, and sunk down upon the bench; yet holding out to him one hand, while with the other she covered her face: 'Forgive me,' she cried, 'I entreat ... for I scarce know what I say.'

Such a speech, and so accompanied, might have demolished the stoicism of an older philosopher than Edgar; he fervently kissed her proferred hand, exclaiming: 'Forgive you! can Camilla use such a word? has she the slightest care for my opinion? the most remote concern for me, or for my happiness?'

'Farewell! farewell!' cried she, hastily drawing away her hand, 'go now, I beseech you!'

'What a moment to expect me to depart! O Camilla! my soul sickens of this suspence! End it, generous Camilla! beloved as lovely! my heart is all your own! use it gently, and accept it nobly!'

Every other emotion, now, in the vanquished Camilla, every retrospective fear, every actual regret, yielded to the conquering charm of grateful tenderness; and restoring the hand she had withdrawn: 'O Edgar,' she cried, 'how little can I merit such a gift! yet I prize it ... far, far beyond all words!'

The agitation of Edgar was, at first, too mighty and too delicious for speech; but his eyes, now cast up to heaven, now fixed upon her own, spoke the most ardent, yet purest felicity; while her hand, now held to his heart, now pressed to his lips, strove vainly to recover its liberty. 'Blest moment!' he at length uttered, 'that finishes for every such misery of uncertainty! that gives my life to happiness ... my existence to Camilla!'

Again speech seemed too poor for him. Perfect satisfaction is seldom loquacious; its character is rather tender than gay; and where happiness succeeds abruptly to long solicitude and sorrow, its enjoyment is fearful; it softens rather than exhilarates. Sudden joy is sportive, but sudden happiness is awful.

The pause, however, that on his side was ecstatic thankfulness, soon became mixt, on that of Camilla, with confusion and remorse: Sir Sedley returned to her memory, and with him every reflection, and every apprehension, that most cruelly could sully each trembling, though nearly gratified hope.

The cloud that so soon dimmed the transient radiance of her countenance, was instantly perceived by Edgar; but as he was beginning the most anxious inquiries, the two sisters approached, and Camilla, whose hand he then relinquished, rushed forward, and throwing her arms around their necks, wept upon their bosoms.

'Sweet sisters!' cried Edgar, embracing them all three in one; 'long may ye thus endearingly entwine each other, in the sacred links of affectionate affinity! Where shall I find our common father?... where is Mr. Tyrold?'

The amazed sisters could with difficulty answer that he was with their uncle, to whom he was communicating news from their mother.

Edgar looked tenderly at Camilla, but, perceiving her emotion, forbore to speak to her, though he could not deny himself the pleasure of snatching one kiss of the hand which hung down upon the shoulder of Eugenia; he then whispered to both the sisters: 'You will not, I trust, be my enemies?' and hurried to the house.

'What can this mean?' cried Eugenia and Lavinia in a breath.

'It means,' said Camilla, 'that I am the most distressed ... yet the happiest of human beings!'

This little speech, began with the deepest sigh, but finished with the most refulgent smile, only added to their wonder.

'I hope you have been consulting with Edgar,' said the innocent Eugenia; 'nobody can more ably advise you, since, in generosity to Lionel, you are prohibited from counselling with my father.'

Again the most expressive smiles played in every feature through the tears of Camilla, as she turned, with involuntary archness, to Eugenia, and answered: 'And shall I follow his counsel, my dear sister, if he gives me any?'

'Why not? he is wise, prudent, and much attached to us all. How he can have supposed it possible we could be his enemies, is past all divination!'

Gaiety was so truly the native growth of the mind of Camilla, that neither care nor affliction could chace it long from its home. The speeches of the unsuspicious Eugenia, that a moment before would have past unheeded, now regaled her renovated fancy with a thousand amusing images, which so vigorously struggled against her sadness and her terrors, that they were soon nearly driven from the field by their sportive assailants; and, by the time she reached her chamber, whither, lost in amaze, her sisters followed her, the surprise she had in store for them, the pleasure with which she knew they would sympathise in her happiness, and the security of Edgar's decided regard, had liberated her mind from the shackles of reminiscence, and restored her vivacity to its original spirit.

Fastening, then, her door, she turned to them with a countenance of the brightest animation; alternately and almost wildly embraced them, and related the explicit declaration of Edgar; now hiding in their bosoms the blushes of her modest joy, now offering up to Heaven the thanksgiving of her artless rapture, now dissolving in the soft tears of the tenderest sensibility, according to the quick changing impulses of her natural and lively, yet feeling and susceptible character. Nor once did she look at the reverse of this darling portrait of chosen felicity, till Eugenia, with a gentle sigh, uttered: 'Unhappy Sir Sedley Clarendel! how may this stroke be softened to him?'

'Ah Eugenia!' she cried; 'that alone is my impediment to the most perfect, the most unmixt content! why have you made me think of him?'

'My dear Camilla,' said Eugenia, with a look of curious earnestness, and taking both her hands, while she seemed examining her face, 'you are then, it seems, in love? and with Edgar Mandlebert?'

Camilla, blushing, yet laughing, broke away from her, denying the charge.

A consultation succeeded upon the method of proceeding with the young baronet. Tommy Hodd was not yet returned with the answer; it was five miles to Clarendel Place, which made going and returning his day's work. She resolved to wait but this one reply, and then to acknowledge to Edgar the whole of her situation. The delicacy of Lavinia, and the high honour of Eugenia, concurred in the propriety of this confession; and they all saw the urgent necessity of an immediate explanation with Sir Sedley, whose disappointment might every hour receive added weight from delay. Painful, therefore, confusing and distasteful, as was the task, Camilla determined upon the avowal, and as completely to be guided by Edgar in this difficult conjuncture, as if his advice were already sanctioned by conjugal authority.

Chapter VI

A Call of the House

Edgar returned to the parlour with a countenance so much brightened, a joy so open, a confidence so manly, and an air so strongly announcing some interesting intelligence, that his history required no prelude. 'Edgar,' said Mr. Tyrold, 'you have a look to disarm care of its corrosion. You could not take a better time to wear so cheering an aspect; I have just learnt that my wife can fix no sort of date for her return; I must borrow, therefore, some reflected happiness; and none, after my children, can bring its sunshine so home to my bosom as yourself.'

'What a fortunate moment have you chosen,' cried Edgar, affectionately taking him by the hand, 'to express this generous pleasure in seeing me happy! will you repent, will you retract, when you hear in what it may involve you?... Dearest sir! my honoured, my parental friend! to what a test shall I put your kindness!... Will you give me in charge one of the dearest ties of your existence? will you repose in my care so large a portion of your peace? will you trust to me your Camilla?...'

With all the ardour of her character, all the keen and quick feelings of her sensitive mind, scarce had Camilla herself been more struck, more penetrated with sudden joy, sudden wonder, sudden gratification of every kind, than Mr. Tyrold felt at this moment. He more than returned the pressure with which Edgar held his hand, and instantly answered, 'Yes, my excellent young friend, without hesitation, without a shadow of apprehension for her happiness! though she is all the fondest father can wish; ... and though she only who gave her to me is dearer!'

Felicity and tenderness were now the sole guests in the breast of Edgar. He kissed with reverence the hand of Mr. Tyrold, called him by the honoured and endearing title of father; acknowledged that, from the earliest period of observation, Camilla had seemed to him the most amiable of human creatures; spoke with the warm devotion he sincerely felt for her of Mrs. Tyrold; and was breathing forth his very soul in tender rapture upon his happy prospects, when something between a sigh and a groan from the baronet, made him hastily turn round, apologise for not sooner addressing him, and respectfully solicit his consent.

Sir Hugh was in an agitation of delight and surprise almost too potent for his strength. 'The Lord be good unto me,' he cried; 'have I lived to see such a day as this!' Then, throwing his arms about Edgar's neck, while his eyes were fast filling with tears, which soon ran plentifully down his cheeks, 'Good young Mr. Edgar!' he cried; 'good young man! and do you really love my poor Camilla, for all her not being worth a penny? And will my dear little darling come to so good an end at last, after being disinherited for doing nothing? And will you never vex her, nor speak an unkind word to her? Indeed, young Mr. Edgar, you are a noble boy! you are indeed; and I love you to the bottom of my old heart for this true good naturedness!'

Then, again and again embracing him, 'This is all of a piece,' he continued, 'with your saving my poor old Rover, which is a thing I shall never forget to my longest day, being a remarkable sign of a good heart; the poor dog having done nothing to offend, as we can all testify. So that it's a surprising thing what that mastiff owed him such a grudge for.'

Then quitting him abruptly to embrace Mr. Tyrold, 'My dear brother,' he cried, 'I hope your judgment approves this thing, as well as my sister's, when she comes to hear it, which I shall send off express, before I sleep another wink, for fear of accidents.'

'Approve,' answered Mr. Tyrold, with a look of the most expressive kindness at Edgar, 'is too cold a word; I rejoice, even thankfully rejoice, to place my dear child in such worthy and beloved hands.'

'Well, then,' cried the enchanted baronet, 'if that's the case, that we are all of one mind, we had better settle the business at once, all of us being subject to die by delay.'

He then rang the bell, and ordered Jacob to summon Camilla to the parlour, adding, 'And all the rest too, Jacob, for I have something to tell them every one, which, I make no doubt, they will be very glad to hear, yourself included, as well as your fellow-servants, who have no right to be left out; only let my niece come first, being her own affair.'

Camilla obeyed not the call without many secret sensations of distress and difficulty, but which, mingled with the more obvious ones of modesty and embarrassment, all passed for a flutter of spirits that appeared natural to the occasion.

Mr. Tyrold could only silently embrace her: knowing what she had suffered, and judging thence the excess of her present satisfaction, he would not add to her confusion by any information of his consciousness; but the softness with which he held her to his bosom spoke, beyond all words, his heartfelt sympathy in her happiness.

Camilla had no power to draw herself from his arms; but Edgar hovered round her, and Sir Hugh repeatedly and impatiently demanded to have his turn. Mr. Tyrold, gently disengaging himself from her embraces, gave one of her hands to Edgar, who, with grateful joy, pressed it to his lips. 'My children!' he then said, laying a hand upon the shoulder of each, 'what a sight is this to me! how precious a union! what will it be to your excellent mother! So long and so decidedly it has been our favourite earthly wish, that, were she but restored to me ... to her country and to her family ... I might, perhaps, require some new evil to prevent my forgetting where ... and what I am!'

'My dear brother, I say! my dear niece! My dear Mr. young Edgar!' cried Sir Hugh, in the highest good humour, though with nearly exhausted patience, 'won't you let me put in a word? nor so much as give you my blessing? though I can hardly hold life and soul together for the sake of my joy!'

Camilla cast herself into his arms, he kissed her most fondly, saying: 'Don't forget your poor old uncle, my dear little girl, for the account of this young Mr. Edgar, because, good as he is, he has taken to you but a short time in comparison with me.'

'No,' said Edgar, still tenaciously retaining the hand parentally bestowed upon him; 'no, dear Sir Hugh, I wish not to rob you of your darling. I wish but to be admitted myself into this dear and respected family, and to have Etherington, Cleves, and Beech Park, considered as our alternate and common habitations.'

'You are the very best young man in the whole wide world!' cried Sir Hugh, almost sobbing with ecstasy; 'for you have hit upon just the very thing I was thinking of in my own private mind! What a mercy it is our not accepting that young Captain, who would have run away with her to I don't know where, instead of being married to the very nearest estate in the county, that will always be living with us!'

The rest of the family now, obedient to the direction of Jacob, who had intimated that something extraordinary was going forward, entered the room.

'Come in, come in,' cried Sir Hugh, 'and hear the good news; for we have just been upon the very point of losing the best opportunity that ever we had in our lives of all living together; which, I hope, we shall now do, without any more strangers coming upon us with their company, being a thing we don't desire.'

'But what's the good news, uncle?' said Indiana; 'is it only about our living together?'

'Why, yes, my dear, that's the first principle, and the other is, that young Mr. Edgar's going to marry Camilla; which I hope you won't take ill, liking being all fancy.'

'Me?' cried she, with a disdainful toss of the head, though severely mortified; 'it's nothing to me, I'm sure!'

Camilla ashamed, and Edgar embarrassed, strove now mutually to shew Sir Hugh they wished no more might be said: but he only embraced them again, and declared he had never been so full of joy before in his whole life, and would not be cut short.

Miss Margland, extremely piqued, vented her spleen in oblique sarcasms, and sought to heal her offended pride by appeals for justice to her sagacity and foresight in the whole business.

Jacob, now opening the door, said all the servants were come.

Camilla tried to escape; but Sir Hugh would not permit her, and the house-keeper and butler led the way, followed by every other domestic of the house.

'Well, my friends,' he cried, 'wish her joy, which I am sure you will do of your own accord, for she's going to be mistress of Beech Park; which I thought would have been the case with my other niece, till I found out my mistakes; which is of no consequence now, all having ended for the best; though unknown to us poor mortals.'

The servants obeyed with alacrity, and offered their hearty congratulations to the blushing Camilla and happy Edgar, Molly Mill excepted; who, having concluded Sir Sedley Clarendel the man, doubted her own senses, and, instead of open felicitations, whispered Camilla, 'Dear Miss, I've got another letter for you! It's here in my bosom.'

Camilla, frightened, said: 'Hush! hush!' while Edgar, imagining the girl, whose simplicity and talkativeness were familiar to him, had said something ridiculous, entreated to be indulged with hearing her remark: but seeing Camilla look grave, forbore to press his request.

The baronet now began an harangue upon the happiness that would accrue from these double unions, for which he assured them they should have double remembrances, though the same preparations would do for both, as he meant they should take place at the same time, provided Mr. Edgar would have the obligingness to wait for a fair wind, which he was expecting every hour.

Camilla could now stay no longer; nor could Edgar, though adoring the hearty joy of Sir Hugh, refuse to aid her in absconding.

He begged her permission to follow, as soon as it might be possible, which she tacitly accorded. She was impatient herself for the important conference she was planning, and felt, with increasing solicitude, that all her life's happiness hung upon her power to extricate herself honourably from the terrible embarrassment in which she was involved.

She sauntered about the hall till the servants came out, anxious to receive the letter which Molly Mill had announced. They all sought to surround her with fresh good wishes; but she singled out Molly, and begged the rest to leave her for the present. The letter, however, was not unpinned from the inside of Molly's neck handkerchief, before Edgar, eager and gay, joined her.

Trembling then, she entreated her to make haste.

'La, Miss,' answered the girl, 'if you hurry me so, I shall tear it as sure as can be; and what will you say then, Miss?'

'Well ... then ... another time will do ... take it to my room.'

'No, no, Miss; the gentleman told Tommy Hodd he wanted an answer as quick as can be; he said, if Tommy'd come a-horseback, he'd pay for the horse, to make him quicker; and Tommy says he always behaves very handsome.'

She then gave her the squeezed billet. Camilla, in great confusion, put it into her pocket. Edgar, who even unavoidably heard what passed, held back till Molly retired; and then, with an air of undisguised surprise and curiosity, though in a laughing tone, said, 'Must not the letter be read till I make my bow?'

'O yes,' ... cried she, stammering, 'it may be read ... at any time.' And she put her hand in her pocket to reproduce it. But the idea of making known the strange and unexpected history she had to relate, by shewing so strange a correspondence, without one leading and softening previous circumstance, required a force and confidence of which she was not mistress. She twisted it, therefore, hastily round, to hide the hand-writing of the direction, and, then, with the same care, rolled it up, and encircled it with her fingers.

'Shall I be jealous?' said he, gently, though disappointed.

'You have much reason!' she answered, with a smile so soft, it dispersed every fear, yet with an attention so careful to conceal the address, that it kept alive every wonder. He took her other hand, and kissing it, cried: 'No, sweetest Camilla, such unworthy distrust shall make no part of our compact. Yet I own myself a little interested to know what gentleman has obtained a privilege I should myself prize above almost any other. I will leave you, however, to read the letter, and, perhaps, before you answer it ... but no ... I will ask nothing; I shall lose all pleasure in your confidence, if it is not spontaneous. I will go and find your sisters.'

The first impulse of Camilla was, to commit to him immediately the unopened letter: but the fear of its contents, its style, its requisitions, made her terror overpower her generosity; and, though she looked after him with regret, she stood still to break the seal of her letter.

Miss Camilla Tyrold.

Is it thus, O far too fair tormenter! thou delightest to torture? Dost thou give wings but to clip them? raise expectation but to bid it linger? fan bright the flame of hope, but to see it consume in its own ashes? Another delay?... Ah! tell me how I may exist till it terminates! Name to me, O fair tyrant! some period, ... or build not upon longer forbearance, but expect me at your feet. You talk of the Grove: its fair owner is just returned, and calls herself impatient to see you. To-morrow, then, ... you will not, I trust, kill me again tomorrow? With the sun, the renovating sun, I will visit those precincts, nor quit them till warned away by the pale light of Diana: tell me, then, to what century of that period your ingenious cruelty condemns me to this expiring state, ere a vivifying smile recalls me back to life?

SEDLEY CLARENDEL.

The immediate presence of Edgar himself could not have made this letter dye the cheeks of Camilla of a deeper red. She saw that Sir Sedley thought her only coquetishly trifling, and she looked forward with nearly equal horror to clearing up a mistake that might embitter his future life, and to acknowledging to Edgar ... the scrupulous, the scrutinising, the delicate Edgar ... that such a mistake could have been formed.

She was ruminating upon this formidable, this terrible task, when Edgar again appeared, accompanied by her sisters. She hurried the letter into her pocket. Edgar saw the action with a concern that dampt his spirits; he wished to obtain from her immediately the unlimited trust, which immediately, and for ever, he meant to repose in her. They all strolled together for a short time in the park; but she was anxious to retreat to her room, and her sisters were dying with impatience to read Sir Sedley's letter. Edgar, disturbed to see how little any of their countenances accorded with the happy feelings he had so recently experienced, proposed not to lengthen the walk, but flattered himself, upon re-entering the house, Camilla would afford him a few minutes of explanation. But she only, with a faint smile, said she should soon return to the parlour; and he saw Molly Mill eagerly waiting for her upon the stairs, and heard her, in reply to some question concerning Tommy Hodd, desire the girl to be quiet till she got to her room.

Edgar could form no idea of what all this meant, yet, that some secret disturbance preyed upon Camilla, that some gentleman wrote to her, and expected impatiently an answer; and that the correspondence passed neither through her friends, nor by the post, but by the medium of Molly Mill, were circumstances not less unaccountable than unpleasant.

Camilla, meanwhile, produced the letter to her sisters, beseeching their ablest counsel. 'See but,' she cried, 'how dreadfully unprepared is Sir Sedley for the event of the day! And oh!... how yet more unprepared must be Edgar for seeing that such a letter could ever be addressed to me! How shall I shew it him, my dear sisters? how help his believing I must have given every possible encouragement, ere Sir Sedley could have written to me in so assured a style?'

Much deliberation ensued; but they were all so perplexed, that they were summoned to tea before they had come to any resolution.

The counsel of Eugenia, then, prevailed; and it was settled, that Camilla should avoid, for the present, any communication to Edgar, lest it should lead to mischief between him and the young baronet, who could not but be mutually displeased with each other; and that the next morning, before she saw Edgar again, she should set out for the Grove, and there cast herself wholly upon the generosity of Sir Sedley; and, when freed from all engagement, return, and relate, without reserve, the whole history to Edgar; who would so soon be brother of her brother, that he would pardon the faults of Lionel, and who would then be in no danger himself from personal contest or discussion with Sir Sedley. She wrote, therefore, one line, to say she would see Mrs. Arlbery early the next day, and delivered it to Molly Mill; who promised to borrow a horse of the under-groom, that Tommy Hodd might be back before bed-time, without any obligation to Sir Sedley.

She, then, went down stairs; when Edgar, disappointed by her long absence, sought vainly to recompense it by conversing with her. She was gentle, but seated herself aloof, and avoided his eyes.

His desire to unravel so much mystery he thought now so legitimated by his peculiar situation, that he was frequently upon the point of soliciting for information: but, to know himself privileged, upon further reflexion, was sufficient to insure his forbearance. Even when that knot was tied which would give to him all power, he sincerely meant to owe all her trust to willing communication. Should he now, then, make her deem him exacting, and tenacious of prerogative? no; it might shackle the freedom of her mind in their future intercourse. He would quietly, therefore, wait her own time, and submit to her own inclination. She could not doubt his impatience; he would not compel her generosity.

Chapter VII

The Triumph of Pride

The three sisters were retired, at night, to another council in the room of Camilla, when Molly Mill, with a look of dismay, burst in upon them, bringing, with the answer of Sir Sedley, news that Tommy Hodd, by an accident he could not help, had rode the horse she had borrowed for him of the under-groom to death.

The dismay, now, spread equally to them all. What a tale would this misfortune unfold to Sir Hugh, to Edgar, to the whole house! The debt of Lionel, the correspondence with Sir Sedley, the expectations of the young baronet.... Camilla could not support it; she sent for Jacob to own to him the affair, and beg his assistance.

Jacob, though getting into bed, obeyed the call. He was, however, so much irritated at the loss of the horse, and the boldness of the under-groom, in lending him without leave, that, at first, he would listen to no entreaties, and protested that both the boy and Molly Mill should be complained of to his master. The eloquence, however, of his three young mistresses, for so all the nieces of Sir Hugh were called by the servants at Cleves, soon softened his ire; he almost adored his master, and was affectionately attached to the young family. They begged him, therefore, to buy another horse, as like it as possible, and to contrive not to employ it when Sir Hugh was in sight, till they were able to clear up the history to their uncle themselves: this would not be difficult, as the baronet rarely visited his stables since his fall, from the melancholy with which he was filled by the sight of his horses.

There was to be a fair for cattle in the neighbourhood the next day, and Jacob promised to ride over to see what bargain he could make for them.

They then inquired about what money would be necessary for the purchase.

The cost, he said, of poor Tom Jones was 40£.

Camilla held up her hands, almost screaming. Eugenia, with more presence of mind, said they would see him again in the morning before he went, and then told Molly Mill to wait for her in her own room.

'What can I now do?' cried Camilla; 'I would not add the history of this dreadful expence to the sad tale I have already to relate to Edgar for the universe! To begin my career by such a string of humiliations would be insupportable. Already I owe five guineas to Mrs. Arlbery, which the tumult of my mind since my return has prevented me from naming to my uncle; and I have left debts at Tunbridge that will probably take up all my next quarter's allowance!'

'As far as these three guineas will go,' said Lavinia, taking out her purse, 'here, my dearest Camilla, they are; ... but how little that is! I never before thought my pittance too small! yet how well we all know my dear father cannot augment it.'

Eugenia, who, in haste, had stept to her own room, now came back, and putting twenty guineas into the hand of Camilla, said: 'This, my beloved sister, is all I now have by me; but Jacob is rich and good, and will rejoice to pay the rest for us at present; and I shall very soon reimburse him, for my uncle has insisted upon making me a very considerable present, which I shall, now, no longer refuse.'

Camilla burst into tears, and, hanging about their necks: 'O my sisters,' she cried, 'what goodness is yours! but how can I avail myself of it with any justice? Your three guineas, my Lavinia, your little all ... how can I bear to take?'

'Do not teach me to repine, my dear Camilla, that I have no more! I am sure of being remembered by my uncle on the approaching occasions, and I can never, therefore, better spare my little store.'

'You are all kindness! and you my dear Eugenia, though you have more, have claims upon that more, and are both expected and used to answer them....'

'Yes, I have indeed more!' interrupted Eugenia, 'which only sisters good as mine could pardon; but because my uncle has made me his heiress, has he made me a brute? No! whatever I have, must be amongst us all in common, not only now, but ...' She stopt, affrighted at the idea she was presenting to herself, and fervently clasping her hands, exclaimed: 'O long ... long may it be ere I can shew my sisters all I feel for them! they will believe it, I am sure ... and that is far happier!'

The idea this raised struck them all, at the same moment, to the heart. Not one of them had dry eyes, and with a sadness over-powering every other consideration, they sighed as heavily, and with looks as disconsolate, as if the uncle so dear to them were already no more.

The influence of parts, the predominance of knowledge, the honour of learning, the captivation of talents, and even the charm of fame itself, all shrink in their effects before the superior force of goodness, even where most simple and uncultivated, for power over the social affections.

* * * * *

At an early hour, the next morning the commission, with the twenty guineas in hand, and the promise of the rest in a short time, were given to Jacob; and Camilla, then, begged permission of her father, and the carriage of her uncle, to visit Mrs. Arlbery, who, she had heard, was just returned to the Grove.

Concluding she wished to be the messenger of her own affairs to that lady, they made no opposition, and she set off before eight o'clock, without entering the parlour, where Edgar, she was informed, was already arrived for breakfast.

The little journey was terrible to her; scenes of disappointment and despair on the part of Sir Sedley, were anticipated by her alarmed imagination, and she reproached herself for every word she had ever spoken, every look she had ever given, that could have raised any presumption of her regard.

The last note was written in the style of all the others, and not one ever expressed the smallest doubt of success; how dreadful then to break to him such news, at the very moment he might imagine she came to meet him with partial pleasure!

Mrs. Arlbery was not yet risen. Camilla inquired, stammering, if any company were at the house. None, was the answer. She then begged leave to walk in the garden till Mrs. Arlbery came down stairs.

She was not sorry to miss her; she dreaded her yet more than Sir Sedley himself, and hoped to see him alone.

Nevertheless, she remained a full hour in waiting, ruminating upon the wonder her disappearance would give to Edgar, and nearly persuaded some chance had anticipated her account to Sir Sedley, whose rage and grief were too violent to suffer him to keep his appointment.

This idea served but to add to her perturbation, when, at last, she saw him enter the garden.

All presence of mind then forsook her; she looked around to see if she could escape, but his approach was too quick for avoidance. Her eyes, unable to encounter his, were bent upon the ground, and she stood still, and even trembling, till he reached her.

To the prepossessed notions and vain character of Sir Sedley, these were symptoms by no means discouraging; with a confidence almost amounting to arrogance he advanced, pitying her distress, yet pitying himself still more for the snare in which it was involving him. He permitted his eyes for a moment to fasten upon her, to admire her, and to enjoy triumphantly her confusion in silence: 'Ah, beauteous tyrant!' he then cried; 'if this instant were less inappreciable, in what language could I upbraid thy unexampled abuse of power? thy lacerating barbarity?'

He then, almost by force, took her hand; she struggled eagerly to recover it, but 'No,' he cried, 'fair torturer! it is now my prisoner, and must be punished for its inhuman sins, in the congealing and unmerciful lines it has portrayed for me.'

And then, regardless of her resistance, which he attributed to mere bashfulness, he obstinately and incessantly devoured it with kisses, in defiance of opposition, supplication, or anger, till, suddenly and piercingly, she startled him with a scream, and snatched it away with a force irresistible.

Amazed, he stared at her. Her face was almost convulsed with emotion; but her eyes, which appeared to be fixed, directed him to the cause. At the bottom of the walk, which was only a few yards distant, stood Mandlebert.

Pale and motionless, he looked as if bereft of strength and faculties. Camilla had seen him the moment she raised her eyes, and her horror was uncontrollable. Sir Sedley, astonished at what he beheld, astonished what to think, drew back, with a supercilious kind of bow. Edgar, recalled by what he thought insolence to his recollection, advanced a few steps, and addressing himself to Camilla, said: 'I had the commands of Sir Hugh to pursue you, Miss Tyrold, to give you immediate notice that Mr. Lynmere is arrived.' He added no more, deigned not a look at Sir Sedley, but rapidly retreated, remounted his horse, and galloped off.

Camilla looked after him till he was out of sight, with uplifted hands and eyes, deploring his departure, his mistake, and his resentment, without courage to attempt stopping him.

Sir Sedley stood suspended, how to act, what to judge. If Edgar's was the displeasure of a discarded lover, why should it so affect Camilla? if of a successful one, why came she to meet him? why had she received and answered his notes?

Finding she attempted neither to speak nor move, he again approached her, and saying, 'Fair Incomprehensible!...' would again have taken her hand; but rousing to a sense of her situation, she drew back, and with some dignity, but more agitation, cried: 'Sir Sedley, I blush if I am culpable of any part of your mistake; but suffer me now to be explicit, and let me be fully, finally, and not too late understood. You must write to me no more; I cannot answer nor read your letters. You must speak to me no more, except in public society; you must go further, Sir Sedley ... you must think of me no more.'

'Horrible!' cried he, starting back; 'you distress me past measure!'

'No, no, you will soon ... easily ... readily forget me.'

'Inhuman! you make me unhappy past thought!'

'Indeed I am inexpressibly concerned; but the whole affair....'

'You shock, you annihilate me, you injure me in the tenderest point!'

Camilla now, amazed, cried 'what is it you mean, sir?'

'By investing me, fair barbarian, with the temerity of forming any claim that can call for repulse!'

Utterly confounded by so unexpected a disclaiming of all design, she again, though from far different sensations, cast up her eyes and hands. And is it, she thought, for a trifler such as this, so unmeaning, so unfeeling, I have risked my whole of hope and happiness?

She said, however, no more; for what more could be said? She coloured, past him, and hastily quitting the garden, told the footman to apologise to Mrs. Arlbery for her sudden departure, by informing her that a near relation was just arrived from abroad; and then got into the carriage and drove back to Cleves. Sir Sedley followed carelessly, yet without aiming at overtaking her, and intreated, negligently, to be heard, yet said nothing which required the smallest answer.

Piqued completely, and mortified to the quick, by the conviction which now broke in upon him of the superior ascendance of Mandlebert, he could not brook to have been thought in earnest when he saw he should not have been accepted, nor pardon his own vanity the affront it had brought upon his pride. He sung aloud an opera air till the carriage of Sir Hugh was out of sight, and then drove his phaeton to Clarendel-Place, where he instantly ordered his post-chaise, and in less than an hour, set off on a tour to the Hebrides.