Chapter VIII…

Chapter VIII

The Power of Prepossession

The two sisters were silent from the hotel to the house of Mrs. Berlinton.... From the height of happiest expectation, raised by the quick return of Edgar, Camilla was sunk into the lowest despondence, by the abortive conclusion of the meeting: while Eugenia was absorbed in mute joy, and wrapt expectation. But Mrs. Mittin, undisturbed by the pangs of uncertainty, and unoccupied by any romantic persuasion of bliss, spoke amply, with respect to quantity, for all three.

Mrs. Berlinton, though somewhat struck at first sight of Eugenia, with her strange contrast to Camilla, received her with all the distinguishing kindness due to the sister of her friend.

She had the poems of Collins in her hand; and, at their joint desire, instead of putting the book aside, read aloud, and with tenderest accent, one of his most plaintive odes.

Eugenia was enraptured. Ah! thought she, this is indeed the true sister of the accomplished Melmond!... She shall share with him my adoration. My heart shall be devoted ... after my own dear family ... to the homage of their perfections!

The ode, to her great delight, lasted till the dinner was announced, when Melmond appeared: but her prepossession could alone give any charm to his sight: he could barely recollect that he had seen her, or even Camilla before; he had conversed with neither; his eyes had been devoted to Indiana, and the despondence which had become his portion since the news of the marriage of his aunt, seemed but rendered the more peculiarly bitter, by this intimate connection with the family of an object so adored.

Yet, though nothing could be more spiritless than the hour of dinner, Eugenia discovered in it no deficiency; she had previously settled, that the presence of Melmond could only breathe sweets and perfection, and the magic of prejudice works every event into its own circle of expectation.

Melmond did not even accompany them back to the drawing-room. Eugenia sighed; but nobody heard her. Mrs. Mittin said, she had something of great consequence to do in her own room, and Mrs. Berlinton, to divert the languor she found creeping upon them all, had recourse to Hammond's elegies.

These were still reading, when a servant brought in the name of Lord Valhurst. 'O, deny me to him! deny me to him!' cried Mrs. Berlinton; ''tis a relation of Mr. Berlinton's, and I hate him.'

The order was given, however, too late; he entered the room.

The name, as Camilla knew it not, she had heard unmoved; but the sight of a person who had so largely contributed to shock and terrify her in the bathing-house, struck her with horror. Brought up with the respect of other times, she had risen at his entrance; but she turned suddenly round upon recollecting him, and instead of the courtsie she intended making, involuntarily moved away her chair from the part of the room to which he was advancing.

This was unnoticed by Mrs. Berlinton, whose chagrin at his intrusion made her wish to walk away also; while with Lord Valhurst it only passed, joined to her rising, for a mark of her being but little accustomed to company. That Eugenia rose too was not perceived, as she rather lost than gained in height by standing.

Most obsequiously, but most unsuccessfully, the peer made his court to Mrs. Berlinton; inquiring after her health, with fulsome tenderness, and extolling her good looks with nearly gross admiration. Mrs. Berlinton listened, for she was incapable of incivility; though, weary and disgusted, she seldom made the smallest answer.

The two sisters might, with ease, equally have escaped notice, since, though Mrs. Berlinton occasionally addressed them the peer never turned from herself, had not Mrs. Mittin, abruptly entering in search of a pair of scissors, perceived him, and hastily called out, 'O lauk, sir, if it is not you! I know you again well enough! But I hope, now you see us in such good company as this good lady's, you'll believe me another time, when I tell you we're not the sort of persons you took us for! Miss Tyrold, my dear, I hope you've spoke to the gentleman?'

Lord Valhurst with difficulty recollected Mrs. Mittin, from the very cursory view his otherwise occupied eyes had taken of her; but when the concluding words made him look at Camilla, whose youth and beauty were not so liable to be forgotten, he knew at once her associate, and was aware of the meaning of her harangue.

Sorry to appear before his fair kinswoman to any disadvantage, though by no means displeased at an opportunity of again seeing a young creature he had thought so charming, he began an apology to Mrs. Mittin, while his eyes were fixed upon Camilla, vindicating himself from every intention that was not respectful, and hoping she did not so much injure as to mistake him.

Mrs. Mittin was just beginning to answer that she knew better, when the words, 'Why, my Lord, how have you offended Mrs. Mittin?' dropping from Mrs. Berlinton, instantly new strung all her notions. To find him a nobleman was to find him innocent; for, though she did not quite suppose that a peer was not a mortal, she had never spoken to one before; and the power of title upon the ear, like that of beauty upon the eye, is, in its first novelty, all-commanding; manifold as are the drawbacks to the influence of either, when awe is lost by familiarity, and habitual reflection takes place of casual and momentary admiration. Title then, as well as beauty, demands mental auxiliaries; and those who possess either, more watched than the common race, seem of higher responsibility; but proportioned to the censure they draw where they err, is the veneration they inspire where their eminence is complete. Nor is this the tribute of prejudice, as those who look up to all superiority with envy love to aver; the impartial and candid reflectors upon human frailty, who, in viewing it, see with its elevation its surrounding temptations, will call it but the tribute of justice.

To Mrs. Mittin, however, the mere sound of a title was enough; she felt its ascendance without examining its claims, and, dropping the lowest courtsie her knees could support, confusedly said, she hoped his lordship would excuse her speaking so quick and improperly, which she only did from not knowing who he was; for, if she had known him better, she should have been sure he was too much the gentleman to do anything with an ill design.

His lordship courteously accepted the apology; and advanced to Camilla, to express his hopes she had not participated in such injurious suspicions.

She made no answer, and Mrs. Berlinton inquired what all this meant.

'I protest, my dear madam,' said the peer, 'I do not well comprehend myself. I only see there has been some misunderstanding; but I hope this young lady will believe me, when I declare, upon my honour, that I had no view but to offer my protection, at the time I saw her under alarm.'

This was a declaration Camilla could not dispute, and even felt inclined to credit, from the solemnity with which it was uttered; but to discuss it was every way impossible, and therefore, coldly bowing her head, she seemed acquiescent.

Lord Valhurst now pretty equally divided his attention between these two beautiful young women; looking at and complimenting them alternately, till a servant came in and said, 'The two Mr. Westwyns desire to see Miss Tyrold.'

Camilla did not wish to avoid persons to whom she was so much obliged, but begged she might receive them in the next apartment, that Mrs. Berlinton might not be disturbed.

The eager old gentleman stood with the door in one hand, and his son in the other, awaiting her. 'My dear young lady,' he cried, 'I have been hunting you out for hours. Your good governess had not a mind to give me your direction, thinking me, I suppose, but a troublesome old fellow; and I did not know which way to turn, till Hal found it out. Hal's pretty quick. So now, my dear young lady, let me tell you my errand; which I won't be tedious in, for fear, another time, you may rather not see me. And the more I see you, the less I like to think such a thing. However, with all my good will to make haste, I must premise one thing, as it is but fair. Hal was quite against my coming upon this business. But I don't think it the less right for that; and so I come. I never yet saw any good of a man's being ruled by his children. It only serves to make them think their old fathers superannuated. And if once I find Hal taking such a thing as that into his head, I'll cut him off with a shilling, well as I love him.'

'Your menace, sir,' said Henry, colouring, though smiling, 'gives me no alarm, for I see no danger. But ... shall we not detain Miss Tyrold too long from her friends?'

'Ay now, there comes in what I take notice to be the taste of the present day! a lad can hardly enter his teens, before he thinks himself wiser than his father, and gives him his counsel, and tells him what he thinks best. And, if a man i'n't upon his guard, he may be run down for an old dotard, before he knows where he is, and see his son setting up for a member of parliament, making laws for him. Now this is what I don't like; so I keep a tight hand upon Hal, that he mayn't do it. For Hal's but a boy, ma'am, though he's so clever. Not that I pretend I'd change him neither, for e'er an old fellow in the three kingdoms. Well, but, now I'll tell you what I come for. You know how angry I was about Hal's turning that man out of the room? well, I took all the pains I could to come at the bottom of the fray, intending, all the time, to make Hal ask the man's pardon; and now what do you think is the end? Why, I've found out Hal to be in the right! The man proves to be a worthless fellow, that has defamed the niece of my dear Sir Hugh Tyrold; and if Hal had lashed him with a cat-o'nine-tails, I should have been glad of it. I can't say I should have found fault. So you see, my dear young lady, I was but a cross old fellow, to be so out of sorts with poor Hal.'

Camilla, with mingled gratitude and shame, offered her acknowledgments; though what she heard astonished, if possible, even more than it mortified her. How in the world, thought she, can I have provoked this slander?

She knew not how little provocation is necessary for calumny; nor how regularly the common herd, where appearances admit two interpretations, decide for the worst. Girt designed her neither evil nor good; but not knowing who nor what she was, simply filled up the doubts in his own mind, by the bias of his own character.

Confused as much as herself, Henry proposed immediately to retire; and, as Camilla did not invite them to stay, Mr. Westwyn could not refuse his consent: though, sending his son out first, he stopt to say, in a low voice, 'What do you think of Hal, my dear young lady? I'n't he a brave rogue? And did not you tell me I might be proud of my son? And so I am, I promise you! How do you think my old friend will like Hal? I shall take him to Cleves. He's another sort of lad to Master Clermont! I hope, my dear young lady, you don't like your cousin? He's but a sad spark, I give you my word. Not a bit like Hal.'

* * * * *

When the carriage came for Eugenia, who was self-persuaded this day was the most felicitous of her life, she went so reluctantly, that Mrs. Berlinton, caught by her delight in the visit, though unsuspicious of its motive, invited her to renew it the next morning.

At night, Mrs. Mittin, following Camilla to her chamber, said, 'See here, my dear! what do you say to this? Did you ever see a prettier cloak? look at the cut of it, look at the capes! look at the mode! And as for the lace, I don't think all Southampton can produce its fellow; what do you say to it, my dear?'

'What every body must say to it, Mrs. Mittin; that it's remarkably pretty.'

'Well, now try it on. There's a set! there's a fall off the shoulders! do but look at it in the glass. I'd really give something you could but see how it becomes you. Now, do pray, only tell me what you think of it?'

'Always the same, Mrs. Mittin; that it's extremely pretty.'

'Well, my dear, then, now comes out the secret! It's your own! you may well stare; but it's true; it's your own, my dear!'

She demanded an explanation; and Mrs. Mittin said, that, having taken notice that her cloak looked very mean by the side of Mrs. Berlinton's, when she compared them together, she resolved upon surprising her with a new one as quick as possible. She had, therefore, got the pattern of Mrs. Berlinton's and cut it out, and then got the mode at an haberdasher's, and then the lace at a milliner's, and then set to work so hard, that she had got it done already.

Camilla, seeing the materials were all infinitely richer than any she had been accustomed to wear, was extremely chagrined by such officiousness, and gravely inquired how much this would add to her debts.

'I don't know yet, my dear; but I had all the things as cheap as possible; but as it was not all at one shop, I can't be clear as to the exact sum.'

Camilla, who had determined to avoid even the shadow of a debt, and to forbear every possible expence till she had not one remaining, was now not merely vexed, but angry. Mrs. Mittin, however, upon whose feelings that most troublesome of all qualities to its possessors, delicacy, never obtruded, went on, extolling her own performance, and praising her own good nature, without discovering that either were impertinent; and, so far from conceiving it possible they could be unwelcome, that she attributed the concern of Camilla to modesty, on account of her trouble; and mistook her displeasure for distress, what she could do for her in return. And, indeed, when she finished her double panegyric upon the cloak and its maker, with confessing she had sat up the whole night, in order to get it done, Camilla considered herself as too much obliged to her intention to reproach any further its want of judgment; and concluded by merely entreating she would change her note, pay for it immediately, discharge her other accounts with all speed, and make no future purchase for her whatsoever.

Chapter IX

A Scuffle

Eugenia failed not to observe her appointment the next morning, which was devoted to elegiac poetry. A taste so similar operated imperceptibly upon Mrs. Berlinton, who detained her till she was compelled to return to prepare for a great ball at the public rooms; the profound deliberations of Miss Margland, how to exhibit her fair pupil, having finished, like most deliberations upon such subjects, by doing that which is done by every body else upon the same occasion.

Sir Hugh had given directions to Miss Margland to clear his three nieces equally of all expenses relative to public places. Camilla, therefore, being entitled to a ticket, and having brought with her whatever was unspoilt of her Tunbridge apparel, thought this the most seasonable opportunity she could take for again seeing Edgar, who, in their present delicate situation, would no longer, probably, think it right to inquire for her at a stranger's.

Mrs. Berlinton had not purposed appearing in public, till she had formed her own party; but an irrepressible curiosity to see Indiana induced her to accompany Camilla, with no other attendant than Lord Valhurst.

Mrs. Mittin sought vainly to be of the party; Mrs. Berlinton, though permitting her stay in her house, and treating her with constant civility, had no idea of including her in her own society, which she aimed to have always distinguished by either rank, talents, or admirers: and Camilla, who now felt her integrity involved in her economy, was firm against every hint for assisting her with a ticket.

Lord Valhurst, who alone, of the fashionable sojourners, had yet discovered the arrival of Mrs. Berlinton, was highly gratified by this opportunity of attending two such fair creatures in public.

Mrs. Berlinton, as usual, was the last to enter the room; for she never began the duties of the toilette till after tea-time. Two such youthful beauties were not likely to pass without observation.

Mrs. Berlinton, already no longer new to it, had alternately the air of receiving it with the most winning modesty, or of not noticing she received it at all: for though, but a few months since, she had scarcely been even seen by twenty persons, and even of those had never met a fixed eye without a blush, the feelings are so often the mere concomitants of the habits, that she could now already know herself the principal object of a whole assembly, without any sensation of timidity, or appearance of confusion. To be bold was not in her nature, which was soft and amiable; but admiration is a dangerous assaulter of diffidence, and familiarity makes almost any distinction met unmoved.

Camilla was too completely engrossed by her heart, to think of her appearance.

Lord Valhurst, from his time of life, seemed to be their father, though his adulating air as little suited that character as his inclination. He scarce knew upon which most to lavish his compliments, or to regale his eyes, and turned, half expiring with ecstasy, from the soft charms of his kinswoman, with something, he thought, resembling animation, to the more quickening influence of her bright-eyed companion.

But the effect produced upon the company at large by the radiant beauty of Indiana, who had entered some time, was still more striking than any immediate powers from all the bewitching graces of Mrs. Berlinton, and all the intelligent loveliness of Camilla. Her faultless face, her perfect form, raised wonder in one sex, and overpowered envy in the other. The men looked at her, as at something almost too celestial for their devoirs; the women, even the most charming amongst them, saw themselves distanced from all pretensions to rivalry. She was followed, but not approached; gazed at, as if a statue, and inquired after, rather as a prodigy than a mortal.

This awful homage spread not, however, to her party; the watchful but disdainful eyes of Miss Margland obtained for herself, even with usury, all the haughty contempt they bestowed upon others: Eugenia was pronounced to be a foil, brought merely in ridicule: and Dr. Orkborne, whom Miss Margland, though detesting, forced into the set, in preference to being without a man, to hand them from the carriage, and to call it for them at night, had a look so forlorn and distressed, while obliged to parade with them up and down the room, that he seemed rather a prisoner than an esquire, and more to require a guardian to prevent his escaping himself, than to serve for one in securing his young charges from any attack.

Miss Margland augured nothing short of half a score proposals of marriage the next day, from the evident brilliancy of this first opening into life of her beautiful pupil; whose own eyes, while they dazzled all others, sought eagerly those of Melmond, which they meant to vanquish, if not annihilate.

The first care of Miss Margland was to make herself and her young ladies known to the master of the ceremonies. Indiana needed not that precaution to be immediately the choice of the most elegant man in the room; yet she was piqued, not delighted, and Miss Margland felt still more irritated, that he proved to be only a baronet, though a nobleman, at the same time, had presented himself to Eugenia. It is true the peer was ruined; but his title was unimpaired; and though the fortune of the baronet, like his person, was in its prime, Indiana thought herself degraded by his hand, since the partner of her cousin was of superior rank.

Eugenia, insensible to this honour, looked only for Melmond; not like Indiana, splendidly to see and kill, but silently to view and venerate. Melmond, however, was not there; he knew his little command over his passion, in presence of its object; he knew, too, that the expence of public places was not beyond the propriety of his income, and virtuously devoted his evening to his sick aunt.

Edgar had waited impatiently the entrance of Camilla. His momentary sight of Lord Valhurst, at the bathing-room, did not bring him to his remembrance in his present more shewy apparel, and he was gratified to see only an old beau in her immediate suite. He did not deem it proper, as they were now circumstanced, to ask her to dance; but he quietly approached and bowed to her, and addressed some civil inquiries to Mrs. Berlinton. The Westwyns had waited for her at the door; and the father had immediately made her give her hand to Henry to join the dancers.

'That's a charming girl,' cried old Mr. Westwyn, when she was gone; 'a very charming girl, I promise you. I have taken a prodigious liking to her; and so has Hal.'

Revived by this open speech, which made him hope there was no serious design, Edgar smiled upon the old gentleman, who had addressed it to the whole remaining party; and said, 'You have not known that young lady long, I believe, sir?'

'No, sir; but a little while; but that I don't mind. A long while and a short while is all one, when I like a person: for I don't think how many years they've got over their heads since first I saw them, but how many good things they've got on the inside their hearts to make me want to see them again. Her uncle's the dearest friend I have in the world; and when I go from this place, I shall make him a visit; for I'm sure of a welcome. But he has never seen my Hal. However, that good girl will be sure to speak a kind word for him, I know; for she thinks very well of him; she told me herself, I might be proud of my son. I can't say but I've loved the girl ever since for it.'

Edgar was so much pleased with the perfectly natural character of this old gentleman, that, though alarmed at his intended call upon the favour of Sir Hugh, through the influence of Camilla, for Henry, he would yet have remained in his society, had he not been driven from it by the junction of young Lynmere, whose shallow insolence he thought insupportable.

Mrs. Berlinton, who declined dancing, had arrived so late, that when Henry led back Camilla, the company was summoned to the tea-table. She was languishing for an introduction to Indiana, the absence of Melmond obviating all present objection to their meeting; she therefore gave Camilla the welcome task to propose that the two parties should unite.

Many years had elapsed since Miss Margland had received so sensible a gratification; and, in the coalition which took place, she displayed more of civility in a few minutes, than she had exerted during the whole period of her Yorkshire and Cleves residence.

Notwithstanding all she had heard of her charms, Mrs. Berlinton still saw with surprise and admiration the exquisite face and form of the chosen of her brother, whom she now so sincerely bewailed, that, had her own wealth been personal or transferrable, she would not have hesitated in sharing it with him, to aid his better success.

Lord Valhurst adhered tenaciously to his kinswoman; and the three gentlemen who had danced the last dances with Indiana, Eugenia, and Camilla, asserted the privilege of attending their partners at the tea-table.

In a few minutes, Lynmere, coming up to them, with 'Well, have you got any thing here one can touch?' leant his hand on the edge, and his whole body over the table, to take a view at his ease of its contents.

'Suppose there were nothing, sir?' said old Westwyn; 'look round, and see what you could want.'

'Really, sir,' said Miss Margland, between whom and Camilla Lynmere had squeezed himself a place, 'you don't use much ceremony!'

Having taken some tea, he found it intolerable, and said he must have a glass of Champagne.

'La, brother!' cried Indiana, 'if you bring any wine, I can't bear to stay.'

Miss Margland said the same; but he whistled, and looked round him without answering.

Mrs. Berlinton, who, though she had thought his uncommonly fine person an excuse for his intrusion, thought nothing could excuse this ill-breeding, proposed they should leave the tea-table, and walk.

'Sit still, ladies,' said Mr. Westwyn, 'and drink your tea in peace.' Then, turning to Lynmere, 'I wonder,' he cried, 'you a'n't ashamed of yourself! If you were a son of mine, I'll tell you what; I'd lock you up! I'd serve you as I did when I carried you over to Leipsic, eight years ago. I always hated pert boys. I can't fancy 'em.'

Lynmere, affecting not to hear him, though inwardly firing, called violently after a waiter; and, in mere futile vengeance, not only gave an order for Champagne, but demanded some Stilton cheese.

'Cheese!' exclaimed Miss Margland, 'if you order any cheese, I can't so much as stay in the room. Think what a nauseous smell it will make!'

The man answered, they had no Stilton cheese in the house, but the very best of every other sort.

Lynmere, who had only given this command to shew his defiance of control, seized, with equal avidity, the opportunity to abuse the waiter; affirming he belonged to the worst served hotel in Christendom.

The man walked off in dudgeon, and Mr. Westwyn, losing his anger in his astonishment at this effrontery, said, 'And pray, Mr. Lynmere, what do you pretend to know of Stilton cheese? do they make it at Leipsic? did you ever so much as taste it in your life?'

'O, yes! excellent! excellentissimo! I can eat no other.'

'Eat no other! it's well my Hal don't say the same! I'd churn him to a cheese himself if he did! And pray, Mr. Lynmere, be so good as to let me know how you got it there?'

'Ways and means, sir; ways and means!'

'Why you did not send across the sea for it?'

'A travelled man, sir, thinks no more of what you call across the sea, than you, that live always over your own fire-side, think of stepping across a kennel.'

'Well, sir, well,' said the old gentleman, now very much piqued, 'I can't but say I feel some concern for my old friend, to have his money doused about at such a rantipole rate. A boy to be sending over out of Germany into England for Stilton cheese! I wish it had been Hal with all my heart! I promise you I'd have given him enough of it. If the least little thought of the kind was but once to have got in his head, I'd have taken my best oaken stick, and have done him the good office to have helped it out for him: and have made him thank me after too! I hate daintiness; especially in boys. I have no great patience with it.'

Only more incensed, Lynmere called aloud for his Champagne. The waiter civilly told him, it was not usual to bring wine during tea: but he persisted; and Mr. Westwyn, who saw the ladies all rising, authoritatively, told the waiter to mind no such directions. Lynmere, who had entered the ball-room in his riding-dress, raised a switch at the man, which he durst not raise at Mr. Westwyn, and protested, in a threatening attitude, he would lay it across his shoulders, if he obeyed not. The man, justly provoked, thought himself authorised to snatch if from him: Clermont resisted; a fierce scuffle ensued; and though Henry, by immediate intervention, could have parted them, Mr. Westwyn insisted there should be no interference, saying, 'If any body's helped, let it be the waiter; for he's here to do his duty: he don't come only to behave unmannerly, for his own pleasure. And if I see him hard run, it's odds but I lend him my own fist to right him.--I like fair play.'

The female party, in very serious alarm at this unpleasant scene, rose to hurry away. Lord Valhurst was ambitious to suffice as guardian to both his fair charges; but Henry, when prohibited from stopping the affray, offered his services to Camilla, who could not refuse them; and Mrs. Berlinton, active and impatient, flew on foremost; with more speed than his lordship could follow, or even keep in sight. Indiana was handed out by her new adorer, the young baronet; and Eugenia was assisted by her new assailer, the young nobleman.

Edgar, who had hurried to Camilla at the first tumult, was stung to the heart to see who handed her away; and, forcing a passage, followed, till Henry, the envied Henry, deposited her in the carriage of Mrs. Berlinton.

The confusion in the room, meanwhile, was not likely soon to decrease, for old Mr. Westwyn, delighted by this mortifying chastisement to Clermont, would permit neither mediation nor assistance on his side; saying, with great glee, 'It will do him a great deal of good! My poor old friend will bless me for it. This is a better lesson than he got in all Leipsic. Let him feel that a Man's a Man; and not take it into his head a person's to stand still to be switched, when he's doing his duty, according to his calling. Switching a man is a bad thing. I can't say I like it. A gentleman should always use good words; and then a poor man's proud to serve him; or, if he's insolent for nothing, he may trounce him and welcome. I've no objection.'

Miss Margland, meanwhile, had not been remiss in what she esteemed a most capital feminine accomplishment, screaming; though, in its exercise, she had failed of any success; since, while her voice called remark, her countenance repelled its effect. Yet as she saw that not one lady of the group retreated unattended, she thought it a disgrace to seem the only female, who, from internal courage, or external neglect, should retire alone; she therefore called upon Dr. Orkborne, conjuring, in a shrill and pathetic voice, meant more for all who surrounded than for himself, that he would protect her.

The Doctor, who had kept his place in defiance of all sort of inconvenience, either to himself or to others; and who, with some curiosity, was viewing the combat, which he was mentally comparing with certain pugilistic games of old, was now, for the first time in the evening, receiving some little entertainment, and therefore composedly answered, 'I have a very good place here, ma'am; and I would rather not quit it till this scene is over.'

'So you won't come, then, Doctor?' cried she, modulating into a soft whine the voice which rage, not terror, rendered tremulous.

Dr. Orkborne, who was any thing rather than loquacious, having given one answer, said no more.

Miss Margland appealed to all present upon the indecorum of a lady's being kept to witness such unbecoming violence, and upon the unheard-of inattention of the Doctor: but a short, 'Certainly!--' 'To be sure, ma'am!--' or, 'It's very shocking indeed!' with a hasty decampment from her neighbourhood, was all of sympathy she procured.

The entrance, at length, of the master of the house, stopt the affray, by calling off the waiter. Clermont, then, though wishing to extirpate old Westwyn from the earth, and ready to eat his own flesh with fury at the double disgrace he had endured, affected a loud halloo, as if he had been contending for his amusement; and protesting Bob, the waiter, was a fine fellow, went off with great apparent satisfaction.

'Now, then, at least, sir,' cried Miss Margland, imperiously to the Doctor, who, still ruminating upon the late contest, kept his seat, 'I suppose you'll condescend to take care of me to the coach?'

'These modern clothes are very much in the way,' said the Doctor, gravely; 'and give a bad effect to attitudes.' He rose, however, but not knowing what to take care of a lady to a coach meant, stood resolutely still, till she was forced, in desperation, to walk on alone. He then slowly followed, keeping many paces behind, notwithstanding her continually looking back; and when, with a heavy sigh at her hard fate, she got, unassisted, into the carriage, where her young ladies were waiting, he tranquilly mounted after her, tolerably reconciled to the loss of his evening, by some new annotations it had suggested for his work, relative to the games of antiquity.

Chapter X

A Youthful Effusion

Camilla now thought herself safe in harbour; the storms all over, the dangers all past, and but a light gale or two wanting to make good her landing on the bosom of permanent repose. This gale, this propitious gale, she thought ready to blow at her call; for she deemed it no other than the breath of jealousy. She had seen Edgar, though he knew her to be protected, follow her to the coach, and she had seen, by the light afforded from the lamps of the carriage, that her safety from the crowd and tumult was not the sole object of his watchfulness, since though that, at the instant she turned round, was obviously secure, his countenance exhibited the strongest marks of disturbance. The secret spring, therefore, she now thought, that was to re-unite them, was in her own possession.

All the counsels of Mrs. Arlbery upon this subject occurred to her; and imagining she had hitherto erred from a simple facility, she rejoiced in the accident which had pointed her to a safer path, and shewn her that, in the present disordered state of the opinions of Edgar, the only way to a lasting accommodation was to alarm his security, by asserting her own independence.

Her difficulty, however, was still considerable as to the means. The severe punishment she had received, and the self blame and penitence she had incurred, from her experiment with Sir Sedley Clarendel, all rendered, too, abortive, by Edgar's contempt of the object, determined her to suffer no hopes, no feelings of her own, to engross her ever more from weighing those of another. The end, therefore, of her deliberation was to shew general gaiety, without appropriate favour, and to renew solicitude on his part by a displayed ease of mind on her own.

Elated with this idea, she determined upon every possible public exhibition by which she could execute it to the best advantage. Mrs. Berlinton had but to appear, to secure the most fashionable persons at Southampton for her parties, and soon renewed the same course of life she had lived at Tunbridge, of seeing company either at home or abroad every day, except when some accidental plan offered a scheme of more novelty.

Upon all these occasions, young Westwyn, though wholly unsought, and even unthought of by Camilla, was instinctively and incautiously the most alert to second her plan; he was her first partner when she danced, her constant attendant when she walked, and always in wait to converse with her when she was seated; while, not purposing to engage him, she perceived not his fast growing regard, and intending to be open to all alike, observed not the thwarting effect to her design of this peculiar assiduity.

By old Mr. Westwyn this intercourse was yet more urgently forwarded. Bewitched with Camilla, he carried his son to her wherever she appeared, and said aloud to everybody but herself: 'If the boy and girl like one another, they shall have one another; and I won't inquire what she's worth; for she thinks so well of my son, that I'd rather he'd have her than an empress. Money goes but a little way to make people happy; and true love's not a thing to be got every day; so if she has a mind to my Hal, and Hal has a mind to her, why, if they have not enough, he must work hard and get more. I don't like to cross young people. Better let a man labour with his hands, than fret away his spirit. Neither a boy nor a girl are good for much when they've got their hearts broke.'

This new experiment of Camilla, like every other deduced from false reasoning, and formed upon false principles, was flattering in its promise, pernicious in its progress, and abortive in its performance. Edgar saw with agony what he conceived the ascendance of a new attachment built upon the declension of all regard for himself; and in the first horror of his apprehensions, would have resisted the supplanter by enforcing his own final claim; but Dr. Marchmont represented that, since he had heard in silence his right to that claim solemnly withdrawn, he had better first ascertain if this apparent connection with young Westwyn were the motive, or only the consequence of that resumption: 'If the first be the case,' he added, 'you must trust her no more; a heart so inflammable as to be kindled into passion by a mere accidental blaze of gallantry and valour, can have nothing in consonance with the chaste purity and fidelity your character requires and merits: If the last, investigate whether the net in which she is entangling herself is that of levity, delighting in change, or of pique, disguising its own agitation in efforts to agitate others.'

'Alas!' cried the melancholy Edgar, 'in either case, she is no more the artless Camilla I first adored! that fatal connection at the Grove, formed while her character, pure, white, and spotless, was in its enchanting, but dangerous state of first ductility, has already broken into that clear transparent singleness of mind, so beautiful in its total ignorance of every species of scheme, every sort of double measure, every idea of secret view and latent expedient!'

'Repine not, however, at the connection till you know whether she owe to it her defects, or only their manifestation. A man should see the woman he would marry in many situations, ere he can judge what chance he may have of happiness with her in any. Though now and then 'tis a blessed, 'tis always a perilous state; but the man who has to weather its storms, should not be remiss in studying the clouds which precede them.'

'Ah, Doctor! by this delay ... by these experiments ... should I lose her!...'

'If by finding her unworthy, where is the loss?'

Edgar sighed, but acknowledged this question to be unanswerable.

'Think, my dear young friend, what would be your sufferings to discover any radical, inherent failing, when irremediably hers! run not into the very common error of depending upon the gratitude of your wife after marriage, for the inequality of her fortune before your union. She who has no fortune at all, owes you no more for your alliance, than she who has thousands; for you do not marry her because she has no fortune! you marry her because you think she has some endowment, mental or personal, which you conclude will conduce to your happiness; and she, on her part, accepts you, because she supposes you or your situation will contribute to hers. The object may be different, but neither side is indebted to the other, since each has self, only, in contemplation; and thus, in fact, rich or poor, high or low, whatever be the previous distinction between the parties, on the hour of marriage they begin as equals. The obligation and the debt of gratitude can only commence when the knot is tied: self, then, may give way to sympathy; and whichever, from that moment, most considers the other, becomes immediately the creditor in the great account of life and happiness.'

* * * * *

While Camilla, in gay ignorance of danger, and awake only to hope, pursued her new course, Eugenia had the infinite delight of improving daily and even hourly in the good graces of Mrs. Berlinton; who soon discovered how wide from justice to that excellent young creature was all judgment that could be formed from her appearance. She found that she was as elegant in her taste for letters as herself, and far more deeply cultivated in their knowledge; that her manners were gentle, her sentiments were elevated, yet that her mind was humble; the same authors delighted and the same passages struck them; they met every morning; they thought every morning too short, and their friendship, in a very few days, knit by so many bands of sympathy, was as fully established as that which already Mrs. Berlinton had formed with Camilla.

To Eugenia this treaty of amity was a delicious poison, which, while it enchanted her faculties by day, preyed upon her vitals by night. She frequently saw Melmond, and though a melancholy bow was almost all the notice she ever obtained from him, the countenance with which he made it, his air, his figure, his face, nay his very dress, for the half instant he bestowed upon her, occupied all her thoughts till she saw him again, and had another to con over and dwell upon.

Melmond, inexpressibly wretched at the deprivation of all hope of Indiana, at the very period when fortune seemed to favour his again pursuing her, dreamt not of this partiality. His time was devoted to deliberating upon some lucrative scheme of future life, which his literary turn of mind rendered difficult of selection, and which his refined love of study and retirement made hateful to him to undertake.

He was kind, however, and even consoling to his aunt, who saw his nearly desolate state with a compunction bitterly increased by finding she had thrown their joint properties, with her own person, into the hands of a rapacious tyrant. To soften her repentance, and allow her the soothing of all she could spare of her own time, Mrs. Berlinton invited her to her own house. Mr. Ulst, of course included in the invitation, made the removal with alacrity, not for the pleasure it procured his wife, but for the money it saved himself; and Mrs. Mittin voluntarily resigned to them the apartment she had chosen for her own, by way of a little peace-offering for her undesired length of stay; for still, though incessantly Camilla inquired for her account, she had received no answer from the creditors, and was obliged to wait for another and another post.

Mrs. Ulst, though not well enough, at present, to see company, and at all times, fanatically averse to every species of recreation, could not entirely avoid Eugenia, whose visits were constant every morning, and whose expected inheritance made a similar wish occur for her nephew, with that which had disposed of her niece; for she flattered herself that if once she could see them both in possession of great wealth, her mind would be more at ease.

She communicated this idea to Mr. Ulst, who, most willing, also, to get rid of the reproach of the poverty and ruin of Melmond, imparted it, with strong exhortation for its promotion, to the young man; but he heard with disdain the mercenary project, and protested he would daily labour for his bread, in preference to prostituting his probity, by soliciting a regard he could never return, for the acquirement of a fortune which he never could merit.

Mr. Ulst, much too hard to feel this as any reflection upon himself, applied for the interest of Mrs. Berlinton; but she so completely thought with her brother, that she would not interfere, till Mr. Ulst made some observations upon Eugenia herself, that inclined her to waver.

He soon remarked, in that young and artless character, the symptoms of the partiality she had conceived in favour of Melmond, which, when once pointed out, could not be mistaken by Mrs. Berlinton, who, though more than equally susceptible with Eugenia, was self-occupied, and saw neither her emotion at his name, nor her timid air at his approach, till Mr. Ulst, whose discernment had been quickened by his wishes, told her when, and for what, to look.

Touched now, herself, by the double happiness that might ensue, from a gratified choice to Eugenia, and a noble fortune to her brother, she took up the cause, with delicacy, yet with pity; representing all the charming mental and intellectual accomplishments of Eugenia, and beseeching him not to sacrifice both his interest and his peace, in submitting to a hopeless passion for one object, while he inflicted all its horrors upon another.

Melmond, amazed and softened, listened and sighed; but protested such a change, from all of beauty to all of deformity, was impracticable; and that though he revered the character she painted, and was sensible to the honour of such a preference, he must be base, double, and perjured, to take advantage of her great, yet unaccountable goodness, by heartless professions of feigned participation.

Mrs. Berlinton, to whom sentiment was irresistible, urged the matter no longer, but wept over her brother, with compassionate admiration.

Another day only passed, when Mrs. Mittin picked up a paper upon the stairs, which she saw fall from the pocket of Eugenia, in drawing out her handkerchief, but which, determining to read ere she returned, she found contained these lines.

'O Reason! friend of the troubled breast, guide of the wayward fancy, moderator of the flights of hope, and sinkings of despair, Eugenia calls thee!'

O! to a feeble, suppliant Maid, Light of Reason, lend thy aid! And with thy mild, thy lucid ray, Point her the way To genial calm and mental joy! From Passion far! whose flashes bright Startle--affright-- Yet ah! invite! With varying powers attract, repel, Now fiercely beam, Now softly gleam, With magic spell Charm to consume, win to destroy! Ah! lead her from the chequer'd glare So false, so fair!-- Ah, quick from Passion bid her fly, Its sway repulse, its wiles defy; And to a feeble, suppliant heart Thy aid, O Reason's light, impart!

Next, Eugenia, point thy prayer That He whom all thy wishes bless, Whom all thy tenderest thoughts confess, Thy calm may prove, thy peace may share. O, if the griefs to him assign'd, To thee might pass--thy strengthened mind Would meet all woe, support all pain, Suffering despise, complaint disdain, Brac'd with new nerves each ill would brave, From Melmond but one pang to save!'

Overjoyed by the possession of the important secret this little juvenile effusion of tenderness betrayed, Mrs. Mittin ran with it to Mrs. Berlinton, and without mentioning she had seen whence the paper came, said she had found it upon the stairs: for even those who have too little delicacy to attribute to treachery a clandestine indulgence of curiosity, have a certain instinctive sense of its unfairness, which they evince without avowing, by the care with which they soften their motives, or their manner, of according themselves this species of gratification.

Mrs. Berlinton, who scrupulously would have withheld from looking into a letter, could not see a copy of verses, and recognise the hand of Eugenia, already known to her by frequent notes, and refrain reading. That she should find any thing personal, did not occur to her; to peruse, therefore, a manuscript ode or sonnet, which the humility of Eugenia might never voluntarily reveal, caused her no hesitation; and she ran through the lines with the warmest delight, till, coming suddenly upon the end, she burst into tears, and flew to the apartment of her brother.

She put the paper into his hand without a word. He read it hastily. Surprised, confounded, disordered, he looked at his sister for some explanation or comment; she was still silently in tears; he read it again, and with yet greater emotion; when, holding it back to her, 'Why, my sister,' he cried, 'why would she give you this? why would you deliver it? Ah! leave me, in pity, firm in integrity, though fallen in fortune!'

'My brother, my dear brother, this matchless creature merits not so degrading an idea; she gave me not the precious paper ... she knows not I possess it; it was found upon the stairs: Ah! far from thus openly confessing her unhappy prepossession, she conceals it from every human being; even her beloved sister, I am convinced, is untrusted; upon paper only she has breathed it, and breathed it as you see ... with a generosity of soul that is equal to the delicacy of her conduct.'

Melmond now felt subdued. To have excited such a regard in a mind that seemed so highly cultivated, and so naturally elegant, could not fail to touch him; and the concluding line deeply penetrated him with tender though melancholy gratitude. He took the hand of his sister, returned her the paper, and was going to say: 'Do whatever you think proper;' but the idea of losing all right to adore Indiana checked and silenced him; and mournfully telling her he required a little time for reflection, he entreated to be left to himself.

He was not suffered to ruminate in quiet; Mrs. Mittin, proud of having any thing to communicate to a relation of Mrs. Berlinton's, made an opportunity to sit with Mrs. Ulst, purposely to communicate to her the discovery that Miss Eugenia Tyrold was in love with, and wrote verses upon, her nephew. Melmond was instantly sent for; the important secret was enlarged upon with remonstrances so pathetic, not to throw away such an invitation to the most brilliant good fortune, in order to cast himself, with his vainly nourished passion, upon immediate hardships, or lasting penury; that reason as well as interest, compelled him to listen; and, after a severe conflict, he gave his reluctant promise to see Eugenia upon her next visit, and endeavour to bias his mind to the connexion that seemed likely to ensue.

Camilla, who was in total ignorance of the whole of this business, received, during the dinner, an incoherent note from her sister, conjuring that she would search immediately, but privately, in her own chamber, in the dressing-room of Mrs. Berlinton, in the hall, and upon the stairs, for a paper in her hand-writing, which she had somewhere lost, but which she besought her, by all that she held dear, not to read when she found; protesting she should shut herself up for ever from the whole world, if a syllable of what she had written on that paper were read by a human being.

Camilla could not endure to keep her sister a moment in this suspensive state, and made an excuse for quitting the table that she might instantly seek the manuscript. Melmond and Mrs. Berlinton both conjectured the contents of the billet, and felt much for the modest and timid Eugenia; but Mrs. Mittin could not confine herself to silent suggestion; she rose also, and running after Camilla, said: 'My dear Miss, has your sister sent to you to look for any thing?'

Camilla asked the meaning of her inquiry; and she then owned she had picked up, from the stairs, a sort of love letter, in which Miss Eugenia had wrote couplets upon Mr. Melmond.

Inexpressibly astonished, Camilla demanded their restoration; this soon produced a complete explanation, and while, with equal surprise and concern, she learnt the secret of Eugenia, and its discovery to its object, she could not but respect and honour all she gathered from Mrs. Berlinton of the behaviour of her brother upon the detection; and his equal freedom from presumptuous vanity, or mercenary projects, induced her to believe her sister's choice, though wholly new to her, was well founded; and that if he could conquer his early propensity for Indiana, he seemed, of all the characters she knew, Edgar alone and always excepted, the most peculiarly formed for the happiness of Eugenia.

She begged to have the paper, and entreated her sister might never know into whose hands it had fallen. This was cheerfully agreed to; but Mrs. Mittin, during the conference, had already flown to Eugenia, and amidst a torrent of offers of service, and professions of power to do any thing she pleased for her, suffered her to see that her attachment was betrayed to the whole house.

The agony of Eugenia was excessive; and she resolved to keep her chamber till she returned to Cleves, that she might neither see nor be seen any more by Melmond nor his family. Scarce could she bear to be broken in upon even by Camilla, who tenderly hastened to console her. She hid her blushing conscious face, and protested she would inhabit only her own apartment for the rest of her life.

The active Mrs. Mittin failed not to carry back the history of this resolution; and Melmond, to his unspeakable regret in being thus precipitated, thought himself called upon in all decency and propriety to an immediate declaration. He could not, however, assume fortitude to make it in person; nor yet was his mind sufficiently composed for writing; he commissioned, therefore, his sister to be the bearer of his overtures.

He charged her to make no mention of the verses, which it was fitting should, on his part, pass unnoticed, though she could not but be sensible his present address was their consequence; he desired her simply to state his high reverence for her virtues and talents, and his consciousness of the inadequacy of his pretensions to any claim upon them, except what arose from the grateful integrity of esteem with which her happiness should become the first object of his future life, if she forbade not his application for the consent of Sir Hugh and Mr. Tyrold to solicit her favour.

With respect to Indiana, he begged her, unless questioned, to be wholly silent. To say his flame for that adorable creature was extinguished would be utterly false; but his peace, as much as his honour, would lead him to combat, henceforth, by all the means in his power, his ill-fated and woe-teeming passion.

This commission was in perfect consonance with the feelings of Mrs. Berlinton, who, though with difficulty she gained admission, executed it with the most tender delicacy to the terrified Eugenia, who, amazed and trembling, pale and incredulous, so little understood what she heard, so little was able to believe what she wished, that, when Mrs. Berlinton, with an affectionate embrace, begged her answer, she asked if it was not Indiana of whom she was speaking!

Mrs. Berlinton then thought it right to be explicit: she acknowledged the early passion of her brother for that young lady, but stated that, long before he had ventured to think of herself, he had determined its conquest; and that what originally was the prudence of compulsion, was now, from his altered prospects in life, become choice: 'And believe me,' added she, 'from my long and complete knowledge of the honour and the delicacy of his opinion, as well as of the tenderness and gratitude of his nature, the woman who shall once receive his vows, will find his life devoted to the study of her happiness.'

Eugenia flew into her arms, hung upon her bosom, wept, blushed, smiled, and sighed, alternately; one moment wished Indiana in possession of her fortune, the next thought she herself, in all but beauty, more formed for his felicity, and ultimately gave her tacit but transported consent to the application.

Melmond, upon receiving it, heaved what he fondly hoped would be his last sigh for Indiana; and ordering his horse, set off immediately for Cleves and Etherington; determined frankly to state his small income and crushed expectations; and feeling almost equally indifferent to acceptance or rejection.

Camilla devoted the afternoon to her agitated but enraptured sister, who desired her secret might spread no further, till the will of her father and uncle should decide its fate; but the loquacious Mrs. Mittin, having some cheap ribands and fine edgings to recommend to Miss Margland and Indiana, could by no means refrain from informing them, at the same time, of the discovered manuscript.

'Poor thing!' cried Indiana, 'I really pity her. I don't think,' imperceptibly gliding towards the glass; 'I don't think, by what I have seen of Mr. Melmond, she has much chance; I've a notion he's rather more difficult.'

'Really this is what I always expected!' said Miss Margland; 'It's just exactly what one might look for from one of your learned educations, which I always despised with all my heart. Writing love verses at fifteen! Dr. Orkborne's made a fine hand of her! I always hated him, from the very first. However, I've had nothing to do with the bringing her up, that's my consolation! I thank Heaven I never made a verse in my life! and I never intend it.'

Chapter XI

The Computations of Self-Love

Camilla left her sister to accompany Mrs. Berlinton to the Rooms; no other mode remaining for seeing Edgar, who, since her rejection, had held back from repeating his attempt of visiting Mrs. Berlinton.

In mutual solicitude, mutual watchfulness, and mutual trials of each other's hearts and esteem, a week had already passed, without one hope being extirpated, or one doubt allayed. This evening was somewhat more, though less pleasantly decisive.

Accident, want of due consideration, and sudden recollection, in an agitated moment, of the worldly doctrine of Mrs. Arlbery, had led Camilla, once more, into the semblance of a character, which, without thinking of, she was acting. Born simple and ingenuous, and bred to hold in horror every species of art, all idea of coquetry was foreign to her meaning, though an untoward contrariety of circumstances, playing upon feelings too potent for deliberations, had eluded her into a conduct as mischievous in its effects and as wide from artlessness in its appearance, as if she had been brought up and nourished in fashionable egotism.

Such, however, was not Camilla: her every propensity was pure, and, when reflection came to her aid, her conduct was as exemplary as her wishes. But the ardour of her imagination, acted upon by every passing idea, shook her Judgment from its yet unsteady seat, and left her at the mercy of wayward Sensibility--that delicate, but irregular power, which now impels to all that is most disinterested for others, now forgets all mankind, to watch the pulsations of its own fancies.

This evening brought her back to recollection.--Young Westwyn, urged by what he deemed encouragement, and prompted by his impatient father, spoke of his intended visit to Cleves, and introduction to Sir Hugh, in terms of such animated pleasure, and with a manner of such open admiration, that she could not mistake the serious purposes which he meant to imply.

Alarmed, she looked at him; but the expression of his eyes was not such as to still her suspicions. Frightened at what now she first observed, she turned from him, gravely, meaning to avoid conversing with him the rest of the evening; but her caution came too late; her first civilities had flattered both him and his father into a belief of her favour, and this sudden drawback he imputed only to virgin modesty, which but added to the fervour of his devoirs.

Camilla now perceived her own error: the perseverance of young Westwyn not merely startled, but appalled her. His character, unassuming, though spirited, was marked by a general decency and propriety of demeanour, that would not presumptuously brave distancing; and awakened her, therefore, to a review of her own conduct, as it related or as it might seem, to himself.

And here, not all the guiltlessness of her intentions could exonerate her from blame with that finely scrutinizing monitor to which Heaven, in pity to those evil propensities that law cannot touch, nor society reclaim, has devolved its earthly jurisdiction in the human breast. With her hopes she could play, with her wishes she could trifle, her intentions she could defend, her designs she could relinquish--but with her conscience she could not combat. It pointed beyond the present moment; it took her back to her imprudence with Sir Sedley Clarendel, which should have taught her more circumspection; and it carried her on to the disappointment of Henry and his father, whom while heedlessly she had won, though without the most remote view to beguile, she might seem artfully to have caught, for the wanton vanity of rejecting.

While advice and retrospection were thus alike oppressive in accusation, her pensive air and withdrawn smiles proved but more endearing to young Westwyn, whose internal interpretation was so little adapted to render them formidable, that his assiduities were but more tender, and allowed her no repose.

Edgar, who with the most suffering suspense, observed her unusual seriousness, and its effect upon Henry, drew from it, with the customary ingenuity of sensitive minds to torment themselves, the same inference for his causeless torture, as proved to his rival a delusive blessing. But while thus he contemplated Henry as the most to be envied of mortals, a new scene called forth new surprise, and gave birth to yet new doubts in his mind. He saw Camilla not merely turn wholly away from his rival, but enter into conversation, and give, apparently, her whole attention to Lord Valhurst, who, it was palpable, only spoke to her of her charms, which, alternately with those of Mrs. Berlinton, he devoted his whole time to worshipping.

Camilla by this action, meant simply to take the quickest road she saw in her power to shew young Westwyn his mistake. Lord Valhurst she held nearly in aversion; for, though his vindication of his upright motives at the bathing-house, joined to her indifference in considering him either guilty or innocent, made her conclude he might be blameless in that transaction, his perpetual compliments, enforced by staring eyes and tender glances, wearied and disgusted her. But he was always by her side, when not in the same position with Mrs. Berlinton; and while his readiness to engage her made this her easiest expedient, his time of life persuaded her it was the safest. Little aware of the effect this produced upon Edgar, she imagined he would not more notice her in any conversation with Lord Valhurst, than if she were discoursing with her uncle.

But while she judged from the sincerity of reality, she thought not of the mischief of appearance. What in her was designed with innocence, was rendered suspicious to the observers by the looks and manner of her companion. The pleasure with which he found, at last, that incense received, which hitherto had been slighted, gave new zest to an adulation which, while Camilla endured merely to shew her coldness to young Westwyn, seemed to Edgar to be offered with a gross presumption of welcome, that must result from an opinion it was addressed to a confirmed coquette.

Offended in his inmost soul by this idea, he scarce desired to know if she were now stimulated most by a wish to torment Henry, or himself, or only by the general pleasure she found in this new mode of amusement. 'Be it,' cried he, to Dr. Marchmont, 'as it may, with me all is equally over! I seek not to recall an attachment liable to such intermissions, such commotions. What would be my peace, my tranquillity, with a companion so unstable? A mind all at large in its pursuits?--a dissipated wife!--No!--I will remain here but to let her know I acquiesce in her dismission, and to learn in what form she has communicated our breach to her friends.'

Dr. Marchmont was silent, and they walked out of the room together; leaving the deceived Camilla persuaded he was so indifferent with regard to the old peer, that all her influence was lost, and all her late exertions were thrown away, by one evening's remissness in exciting his fears of a young rival.

* * * * *

Melmond returned to Southampton the next morning with an air of deep and settled melancholy. He had found the two brothers together, and the candour of his appearance, the plainness of his declaration, the openness with which he stated his situation, and his near relationship to Mrs. Berlinton, procured him a courteous hearing; and he soon saw that both the father and the uncle, though they desired time for consideration and inquiry, were disposed to favour him. Mr. Tyrold, though, to his acknowledged recent disappointment of fortune, he attributed his address, had so little hope that any man at once amiable and rich would present himself to his unfortunate Eugenia, that, when he saw a gentleman well educated, well allied, of pleasing manners, and with every external promise of a good and feeling character, modestly, and with no professions but of esteem and respect, seek her of her friends, he thought himself not even entitled to refuse him. He told him, however, that he could conclude upon nothing in a matter of such equal interest to himself and his wife, without her knowledge and concurrence; and that during the time he demanded before he gave a final answer, he required a forbearance of all intercourse, beyond that of a common acquaintance. His first design was immediately to send for Eugenia home; but the young man appeared so reasonable, so mild, so unlike a fortune-hunter, that, constitutionally indulgent where he apprehended nothing criminal, he contented himself with writing to the same effect to Eugenia, fully satisfied of her scrupulous punctuality, when once his will was known.

Melmond, though thus well received, returned back to Southampton with any air rather than that of a bridegroom. The order, not to wait upon Eugenia in private, was the only part of his task he performed with satisfaction; for though a mind really virtuous made him wish to conquer his repugnance to his future partner, he felt it could not be by comparing her with Indiana.

Eugenia received the letter of her father, written in his own and her uncle's name, with transport; and, to testify her grateful obedience, resolved to name the impending transaction to no one, and even to relinquish her visits to Mrs. Berlinton, and only to see Melmond when accident brought him before her in public.

But Mrs. Mittin, through words casually dropt, or conversations not very delicately overheard, soon gathered the particulars of her situation, which happily furnished her with a new subject for a gossiping visit to Miss Margland and Indiana. The first of these ladies received the news with unconcern, rather pleased than otherwise, that the temptation of an heiress should be removed from any rivalry with the charms of her fair pupil; who, by no means, however, listened to the account with equal indifference. The sight of Melmond at Southampton, with the circumstance of his being brother to the Honourable Mrs. Berlinton, had awakened all the pleasure with which she had first met his impassioned admiration; and while she haughtily expected from every public exhibition, 'to bring home hearts by dozens,' the secret point she had in view, was shewing Melmond that her power over others was as mighty as it had been over himself. She had not taken the trouble to ask with what end: what was passed never afforded her an observation; what was to come never called forth an idea. Occupied only by the present moment, things gone remained upon her memory but as matters of fact, and all her expectations she looked forward to but as matters of course. To lose, therefore, a conquest she had thought the victim of her beauty for life, was a surprise nearly incredible; to lose him to Eugenia an affront scarcely supportable; and she waited but an opportunity to kill him with her disdain. But Melmond, who dreaded nothing so much as an interview, availed himself of the commands of Mr. Tyrold, in not going to the lodgings of Eugenia, and lived absorbed in a melancholy retirement, which books alone could a little alleviate.

The conclusion of the letter of Mr. Tyrold gave to Camilla as much pain as every other part of it gave to Eugenia pleasure: it was an earnest and parentally tender prayer, that the alliance with Melmond, should his worth appear such as to authorise its taking place, might prove the counterpart to the happiness so sweetly promised from that of her sister with Edgar.

While Camilla sighed to consider how wide from the certainty with which he mentioned it was such an event, she blushed that he should thus be uninformed of her insecurity: but while a reconciliation was not more her hope than her expectation with every rising sun, she could not endure to break his repose with the knowledge of a suspense she thought as disgraceful as it was unhappy. Yet her present scheme to accelerate its termination, became difficult even of trial.

The obviously serious regard of Henry was a continual reproach to her; and the undisguised approbation of his father was equally painful. Yet she could now only escape them by turning to some other, and that other was necessarily Lord Valhurst, whose close siege to her notice forced off every assailant but himself. This the deluded Camilla thought an expedient the most innoxious; and gave to him so much of her time, that his susceptibility to the charms of youth and beauty was put to a trial beyond his fortitude; and, in a very few days, notwithstanding their disproportion in age, his embarrassed though large estates, and the little or no fortune which she had in view, he determined to marry her: for when a man of rank and riches resolves to propose himself to a woman who has neither, he conceives his acceptance not a matter of doubt.

In any other society, his admiration of Camilla might easily, like what he had already experienced and forgotten for thousands of her sex, have escaped so grave or decided a tendency; but in Mrs. Berlinton he saw so much of youth and beauty bestowed upon a man whom he knew to be his own senior in age, that the idea of a handsome young wife was perpetually present to him. He weighed, like all people who seek to entice themselves to their own wishes, but one side of the question; and risked, like all who succeed in such self-seduction, the inconvenience of finding out the other side too late. He saw the attractions of his fair kinswoman; but neglected to consider of how little avail they were to her husband; he thought, with exultation of that husband's age, and almost childishness; but forgot to take into the scales, that they had obtained from his youthful choice only disgust and avoidance.

While he waited for some trinkets, which he had ordered from town, to have ready for presenting with his proposals, Edgar only sought an opportunity and courage to take his last farewell. Whenever Camilla was so much engaged with others that it was impossible to approach her, he thought himself capable of uttering an eternal adieu; but when, by any opening, he saw where and how he might address her, his feet refused to move, his tongue became parched, and his pleading heart seemed exclaiming: O, not to-night! yet, yet, another day, ere Camilla is parted with for ever!

But suddenly, soon after, Camilla ceased to appear. At the rooms, at the plays, at the balls, and at the private assemblies, Edgar looked for her in vain. Her old adulator, also, vanished from public places, while her young admirer and his father hovered about in them as usual, but spiritless, comfortless, and as if in the same search as himself.

Chapter XII

Juvenile Calculations

Mrs. Norfield, a lady whom circumstances had brought into some intimacy with Mrs. Berlinton upon her marriage, had endeavoured, from the first of her entrance into high life, to draw her into a love of play; not with an idea of doing her any mischief, for she was no more her enemy than her friend; but to answer her own purposes of having a Faro table under her own direction. She was a woman of fashion, and as such every-where received; but her fortune was small, and her passion for gaming inordinate; and as there was not, at this time, one Faro table at Southampton, whither she was ordered for her health, she was almost wearied into a lethargy, till her reiterated intreaties prevailed, at length, with Mrs. Berlinton to hold one at her own house.

The fatigue of life without view, the peril of talents without prudence, and the satiety of pleasure without intermission, were already dangerously assaulting the early independence and the moment of vacancy and weariness was seized by Mrs. Norfield, to press the essay of a new mode of amusement.

Mrs. Berlinton's house opened, failed not to be filled; and opened for a Faro table, to be filled with a peculiar set. To game has, unfortunately, always its attractions; to game with a perfect novice is not what will render it less alluring; and to see that novice rich and beautiful is still less likely to be repelling.

Mr. Berlinton, when he made this marriage, supposed he had engaged for life a fair nurse to his infirmities; but when he saw her fixed aversion, he had not spirit to cope with it; and when she had always an excuse for a separation, he had not the sense to acquaint himself how she passed her time in his absence. A natural imbecility of mind was now nearly verging upon dotage, and as he rarely quitted his room but at meal times, she made a point never to see him in any other part of the day. Her antipathy rendered her obdurate, though her disposition was gentle, and she had now left him at Tunbridge, to meet her aunt at Southampton, with a knowledge he was too ill to follow her, and a determination, upon various pretences, to stay away from him for some months. The ill fate of such unequal alliances is almost daily exemplified in life; and though few young brides of old bridegrooms fly their mates thus openly and decidedly, their retainers have seldom much cause to rejoice in superior happiness, since they are generally regarded but as the gaolers of their young prey.

Moderation was the last praise to which Mrs. Berlinton had any claim; what she entered upon through persecution, in an interval of mental supineness, she was soon awake to as a pleasure, and next pursued as a passion. Her beloved correspondent was neglected; her favourite authors were set aside; her country rambles were given up; balls and the rooms were forgotten; and Faro alone engrossed her faculties by day, and her dreams during the short epoch she reserved for sleep at night. She lost, as might be expected, as constantly as she played; but as money was not what she naturally valued, she disdained to weigh that circumstance; and so long as she had any to pay, resigned it with more grace than by others it was won.

That Camilla was not caught by this ruinous fascination, was not simply the effect of necessity. Had the state of her finances been as flourishing as it was decayed, she would have been equally steady in this forbearance: her reason was fair, though her feelings frequently chased it from the field. She looked on, therefore, with safety, though not wholly with indifference; she had too much fancy not to be amused by the spirit of the business, and was too animated not to take part in the successive hopes and fears of the several competitors; but though her quick sensations prompted a readiness, like that of Mrs. Berlinton, to enter warmly into all that was presented to her, the resemblance went no further; what she was once convinced was wrong she was incapable of practising.

Upon Gaming, the first feeling and the latest reflection are commonly one; both point its hazards to be unnecessary, its purposes rapacious, and its end desperate loss, or destructive gain; she not only, therefore, held back; she took the liberty, upon the privilege of their avowed friendship, to remonstrate against this dangerous pastime with Mrs. Berlinton. But that lady, though eminently designed to be amiable, had now contracted the fearful habit of giving way to every propensity; and finding her native notions of happiness were blighted in the bud, concluded that all which now remained for her was the indulgence of every luxury. She heard with sweetness the expostulation of her young friend; but she pursued her own course.

In a very few days, however, while the blush of shame dyed her beautiful cheeks, she inquired if Camilla could lend her a little ready money.

A blush of no less unpleasant feelings overspread the face of her fair guest, in being compelled to own she had none to lend; but she eagerly promised to procure some from Mrs. Mittin, who had a note in her hand to exchange for the payment of some small debts contracted at Tunbridge. Mrs. Berlinton, gathering, from her confusion, how ill she was stored, would not hear of applying to this resource, 'though I hate,' she cried, 'to be indebted to that odious old cousin, of whom I was obliged to borrow last night.'

Glaring imprudence in others is a lesson even to the most unthinking; Camilla, when she found that Mrs. Berlinton had lost every guinea she could command, ventured to renew still more forcibly her exhortations against the Faro table; but Mrs. Berlinton, notwithstanding she possessed an excellent capacity, was so little fortified with any practical tenets either of religion or morality, that where sentiment did not take the part of what was right, she had no preservative against what was wrong. The Faro table, therefore, was still opened; and Lord Valhurst, by the sums he lent, obtained every privilege of intimacy in the family, except that of being welcome.

Against this perilous mode of proceeding Camilla was not the only warner. Mrs. Ulst saw with extreme repugnance the mode of life her niece was pursuing, and reprimanded her with severe reproach; but her influence was now lost; and Mrs. Berlinton, though she kindly attended her, and sought to alleviate her sufferings, acted as if she were not in existence.

It was now Mrs. Mittin gained the highest point of her ambition; Mrs. Berlinton, tired of remonstrances she could not controvert, and would not observe, was extremely relieved by finding a person who would sit with her aunt, comply with her humours, hear her lamentations, subscribe to her opinions, and beguile her of her rigid fretfulness by the amusement of gossiping anecdotes.

Mrs. Mittin had begun life as the apprentice to a small country milliner; but had rendered herself so useful to a sick elderly gentlewoman, who lodged in the house, that she left her a legacy, which, by sinking into an annuity, enabled her to quit her business, and set up, in her own conception, for a gentlewoman herself; though with so very small an income, that to sustain her new post, she was frequently reduced to far greater dependence and hardships than she experienced in her old one. She was good-humoured, yet laborious; gay, yet subservient; poor, yet dissipated. To be useful, she would submit to any drudgery; to become agreeable, devoted herself to any flattery. To please was her incessant desire, and her rage for popularity included every rank and class of society. The more eminent, of course, were her first objects, but the same aim descended to the lowest. She would work, read, go of errands, or cook a dinner; be a parasite, a spy, an attendant, a drudge; keep a secret, or spread a report; incite a quarrel, or coax contending parties into peace; invent any expedient, and execute any scheme ... all with the pretext to oblige others, but all, in fact, for simple egotism; as prevalent in her mind as in that of the more highly ambitious, though meaner and less dangerous.

Camilla was much relieved when she found this officious person was no longer retained solely upon her account; but still she could neither obtain her bills, no answers ever arriving, nor the money for her twenty pound note, Mrs. Mittin always evading to deliver it, and asserting she was sure somebody would come in the stage the next day for the payment she had promised; and when Camilla wanted cash for any of the very few articles she now allowed herself to think indispensable, instead of restoring it into her hands, she flew out herself to purchase the goods that were required, and always brought them home with assurances they were cheaper than the shopkeepers would let her have them for herself.

Camilla resisted all incitements to new dress and new ornaments, with a fortitude which must not be judged by the aged, nor the retired, who weighing only the frivolity of what she withstood, are not qualified to appreciate the merit of this sort of resignation; the young, the gay, the new in life, who know that, amongst minor calamities, none are more alarming to the juvenile breast than the fear of not appearing initiated in the reigning modes, can alone do justice to the present philosophy of Camilla, in seeing that all she wore, by the quick changes of fashion, seemed already out of date; in refusing to look at the perpetual diversity of apparel daily brought, by various dress modellers, for the approbation of Mrs. Berlinton, and in seeing that lady always newly, brightly, and in a distinguished manner attired, yet appearing by her side in exactly the same array that she had constantly worn at Tunbridge. Nor was Camilla indifferent to this contrast; but she submitted to it as the duty of her present involved situation, which exacted from her every privation, in preference to bestowing upon any new expence the only sum she could command towards clearing what was past.

But, after a very short time, the little wardrobe exhibited a worse quality than that of not keeping pace with the last devices of the ton; it lost not merely its newness, but its delicacy. Alas! thought she, how long, in the careful and rare wear of Etherington and Cleves, all this would have served me; while here, in this daily use, a fortnight is scarce passed, yet all is spoilt and destroyed. Ah! public places are only for the rich!

Now, therefore, Mrs. Mittin was of serious utility; she failed not to observe the declining state of her attire; and though she wondered at the parsimony which so resolutely prohibited all orders for its renewal, in a young lady she considered as so great an heiress, she was yet proud to display her various powers of proving serviceable. She turned, changed, rubbed, cleaned, and new made up all the several articles of which her dress was composed, to so much advantage, and with such striking effect, that for yet a few days more all seemed renewed, and by the arts of some few alterations, her appearance was rather more than less fashionable than upon her first arrival.

But this could not last long; and when all, again, was fading into a state of decay, Mrs. Berlinton received an invitation for herself and her fair guest, to a great ball and supper, given upon the occasion of a young nobleman's coming of age, in which all the dancers, by agreement, were to be habited in uniform.

This uniform was to be clear fine lawn, with lilac plumes and ornaments.

Camilla had now, with consuming regret, passed several days without one sight of Edgar. This invitation, therefore, which was general to all the company at Southampton, was, in its first sound, delicious; but became, upon consideration, the reverse. Clear lawn and lilac plumes and ornaments she had none; how to go she knew not; yet Edgar she was sure would be there; how to stay away she knew less.

This was a severe moment to her courage; she felt it faltering, and putting down the card of invitation, without the force of desiring Mrs. Berlinton to make her excuse, repaired to her own room, terrified by the preponderance of her wishes to a consent which she knew her situation rendered unwarrantable.

There, however, though she gained time for reflection, she gathered not the resolution she sought. The stay at Southampton, by the desire of Lynmere, had been lengthened; yet only a week now remained, before she must return to her father and her uncle ... but how return? separated from Edgar? Edgar whom she still believed she had only to see again in some more auspicious moment, to re-conquer and fix for life! But when and where might that auspicious moment be looked for? not at Mrs. Berlinton's; there he no more attempted to visit: not at the Rooms; those now were decidedly relinquished, and all general invitations were inadequate to draw Mrs. Berlinton from her new pursuit: where, then, was this happy explanation to pass?

When our wishes can only be gratified with difficulty, we conclude, in the ardour of combating their obstacle, that to lose them, is to lose everything, to obtain them is to ensure all good. At this ball, and this supper, Camilla painted Edgar completely restored to her; she was certain he would dance with her; she was sure he would sit by no one else during the repast; the many days since they had met would endear to him every moment they could now spend together, and her active imagination soon worked up scenes so important from this evening, that she next persuaded her belief that all chance of reconciliation hung wholly upon the meeting it offered.

Impelled by this notion, yet wavering, dissatisfied, and uncomfortable, she summoned Mrs. Mittin, and entreated she would make such inquiries concerning the value of the ball-dress uniform, as would enable her to estimate its entire expence.

Her hours passed now in extreme disquietude; for while all her hopes centred in the approaching festival, the estimate which was to determine her power of enjoying it was by no means easy to procure. Mrs. Mittin, though an adept in such matters, took more pleasure in the parade than in the performance of her task; and always answered to her inquiries, that it was impossible to speak so soon; that she must go to such another shop first; that she must consult with such and such a person; and that she must consider over more closely the orders given by Mrs. Berlinton, which were to be her direction, though with the stipulation of having materials much cheaper and more common.

At length, however, she burst into her room, one morning, before she was dressed, saying: 'Now, my dear miss, I hope I shall make you happy;' and displayed, upon the bed, a beautiful piece of fine lawn.

Camilla examined and admired it, asked what it was a yard, and how much would suffice for the dress.

'Why, my dear, I'll answer for it there's enough for three whole dresses; why it's a whole piece; and I dare say I can get a handkerchief and an apron out of it into the bargain.'

'But I want neither handkerchief, nor apron, nor three dresses, Mrs. Mittin; I shall take the smallest quantity that is possible, if I take any at all.'

Mrs. Mittin said that the man would not cut it, and she must take the whole, or none.

Camilla was amazed she could so far have misunderstood her as to bring it upon such terms, and begged she would carry it back.

'Nay, if you don't take this, my dear, there's nothing in the shops that comes near it for less than fifteen shillings a-yard; Mrs. Berlinton gives eighteen for her's, and it don't look one bit to choose; and this, if you take it all together, you may have for ten, for all its width, for there's 30 yards, and the piece comes to but fifteen pound.'

Camilla protested she would not, at this time, pay ten shillings a-yard for any gown in the world.

Mrs. Mittin, who had flattered herself that the handkerchief and apron, at least, if not one of the gowns, would have fallen to her share, was much discomposed by this unexpected declaration; and disappointed, murmuring, and conceiving her the most avaricious of mortals, was forced away; leaving Camilla in complete despondence of any power to effect her wish with propriety.

Mrs. Mittin came back late, and with a look of dismay; the man of whom she had had the muslin, who was a traveller, whom she had met at a friend's, had not waited her return; and, as she had left the fifteen pounds with him, for a pledge of the security of his goods, she supposed he had made off, to get rid of the whole piece at once.

Camilla felt petrified. No possible pleasure or desire could urge her, deliberately, to what she deemed an extravagance; yet here, in one moment, she was despoiled of three parts of all she possessed, either for her own use, or towards the restitution of her just debts with others.

Observing her distress, though with more displeasure than pity, from believing it founded in the most extraordinary covetousness, Mrs. Mittin proposed measuring the piece in three, and disposing of the two gowns she did not want to Mrs. Berlinton, or her sister and Miss Lynmere.

Camilla was a little revived; but the respite of difficulty was short; upon opening the piece, it was found damaged; and after the first few yards, which Mrs. Mittin had sedulously examined, not a breadth had escaped some rent, fray, or mischief.

The ill being now irremediable, to make up the dress in the cheapest manner possible was the only consolation that remained. Mrs. Mittin knew a mantua-maker who, to oblige her, would undertake this for a very small payment; and she promised to procure everything else that was necessary for the merest trifle.

Determined, however, to risk nothing more in such hands, she now positively demanded that the residue of the note should be restored to her own keeping. Mrs. Mittin, though much affronted, honestly refunded the five pounds. The little articles she had occasionally brought were still unpaid for; but her passion for detaining the money was merely with a view to give herself consequence, in boasting how and by whom she was trusted, and now and then drawing out her purse, before those who had less to produce; but wholly without any design of imposition or fraud; all she could obtain by hints and address she conceived to be fair booty; but further she went not even in thought.

Three days now only remained before this event-promising ball was to take place, and within three after it, the Southampton expedition was to close. Camilla scarce breathed from impatience for the important moment, which was preceded by an invitation to all the company, to take a sail on the Southampton water on the morning of the entertainment.

END OF THE FOURTH VOLUME.

VOLUME V

Chapter I

A Water Party

The ball dress of Camilla was not yet ready, when she set out for the amusement of the morning. Melmond, upon this occasion, was forced into the excursion; his sister represented, so pathetically, the ungrateful ill-breeding of sequestering himself from a company of which it must so publicly be judged Eugenia would make one, with the impossibility of for ever escaping the sight of Indiana, that he could not, in common decency, any longer postpone the double meeting he almost equally dreaded.

And this, with all that could aggravate its misery, from seeing the two objects together, immediately occurred. Sir Hugh Tyrold's coach, containing Miss Margland, Indiana, Eugenia, and Dr. Orkborne, was arrived just before that of Mrs. Berlinton; and, the morning being very fine, they had just alighted, to join the company assembling upon the beach for the expedition. Miss Margland still continued to exact the attendance of the Doctor, though his wry looks and sluggish pace always proclaimed his ill will to the task. But Clermont, the only proper beau for her parties, was completely unattainable. He had connected himself with young Halder, and his associates, from whom, while he received instructions relative to the stables and the dog-kennels, he returned, with suitable edification, lessons on the culinary art.

Melmond, deeply distressed, besought his sister not to alight till the last moment. She pitied him too sincerely not to comply; and, in a very short time, she had herself an aggregate of almost all the gentlemen on the beach before the coach.

Among these, the first to press forward were the two Westwyns, each enraptured to again see Camilla; and the most successful in obtaining notice was Lord Valhurst, with whom Camilla still thought it prudent, however irksome, to discourse, rather than receive again the assiduities of Henry: but her mind, far from them all, was hovering on the edge of the shore, where Edgar was walking.

Edgar, for some time past, had joined the utmost uneasiness what conduct to pursue with regard to the friends of Camilla, to the heart-rending decision of parting from her for ever. He soon learnt the new and dangerous manner in which Mrs. Berlinton spent her evenings, and the idea that most naturally occurred to him, was imparting it to Mr. Tyrold. But in what way could he address that gentleman, without first knowing if Camilla had acquainted him with the step she had taken? He felt too strongly the severe blow it would prove, not to wish softening it with every palliation; and while these still lingering feelings awed his proceedings, his servant learnt, from Molly Mill, that Melmond had been favourably received at Cleves, as a suitor to Eugenia. Finding so near an alliance likely to take place with the brother, he gave up his plan of remonstrating against the sister, except in private counsel to Camilla; for which, and for uttering his fearful adieu, he was now waiting but to speak to her unobserved.

Still, however, with pain unabating he saw the eager approach to her of Henry, with disgust that of Lord Valhurst, and with alarm the general herd.

Lord Pervil, the young nobleman who deemed it worth while to be at the expence of several hundred pounds, in order to let the world know how old he was, now, with his mother, a widow lady, and some other relations, came down in a superb new equipage, to the water-side. Mrs. Berlinton could not be so singular, as not to join in the general crowd, that flocked around them with congratulations; and all parties, in a few minutes, were assembled on one spot.

Edgar, when he had spoken to the group to which the honours of the day belonged, made up to Camilla, gravely enquired after her health; and then placed himself as near to her as he was able, in the hope of conferring with her when the company began to move.

Her spirits now rose, and her prospects re-opened to their wished termination. All her regret was for Henry, who saw her present avoidance, and bemoaned her long absence, with a sadness that reproached and afflicted her.

A very fine yacht, and three large pleasure-boats, were in readiness for this company, surrounded by various other vessels of all sorts and conditions, which were filled with miscellaneous parties, who meant to partake the same gales for their own diversion or curiosity. The invited set was now summoned to the water, Lord Pervil and his relations leading the way by a small boat to the yacht, to which Mrs. Berlinton and the Cleves party were particularly selected guests.

Camilla, depending upon the assistance of Edgar, in passing through the boat to the yacht, so obviously turned from Henry, that he lost all courage for persevering in addressing her, and was even, though most unwillingly, retiring from a vicinity in which he seemed palpably obtrusive, had not his father insisted upon detaining him, whispering, 'Be of good heart, Hal! the girl will come round yet.'

Edgar kept equally near her, with a design that was the counterpart of her own wish, of offering her his hand when it was her turn to enter the boat; but they were both disappointed, the Peer, not waiting that rotation, presented her his arm as soon as Lady Pervil had led the way. There was no redress, though Camilla was as much provoked as either of the young rivals.

Lord Valhurst did not long exult in his victory; the unsteadiness of the boat made him rather want help for himself, than find force to bestow it upon another, and, upon mounting at the helm to pass her on to the yacht, he tottered, his foot slipt, and he must have sunk between the two vessels, had not a waterman caught him up, and dragged him into the yacht, with no further misfortune than a bruised shin, wet legs and feet, and a deplorably rueful countenance, from mingled fright and mortification.

Edgar, not wholly unsuspicious such an accident might happen, was darting into the boat to snatch Camilla from its participation, when he felt himself forcibly pulled back, and saw, at the same moment, Henry, who had also started forward, but whom nothing had retarded, anticipate his purpose, and aid her into the yacht.

Looking round to see by what, or by whom, he had so unaccountably been stopt, he perceived old Mr. Westwyn, his forefinger upon his nose in sign of silence and secrecy, grasping him by the coat.

'What is the humour of this, Sir?' cried he, indignantly.

Mr. Westwyn, still making his token for discretion, and bending forward to speak in his ear, said, 'Do, there's a good soul, let my boy help that young lady. Hal will be much obliged to you, I can tell you; and he's a very good lad.'

The nature of Edgar was too candid to suffer his wrath to resist a request so simple in sincerity; but deeply he sighed to find, by its implication, that the passion of Henry was thus still fed with hopes.

The passing of other ladies, with their esquires, prevented him, who had no lady he wished to conduct, from making his way yet into the yacht; and the honest old gentleman, detained by the same reason, entered promptly into the history of the present situation of his son with regard to Camilla; relating, frankly, that he thought her the sweetest girl in the world, except that she did not know her own mind; for she had been so pleased with his son first of all, that he really thought he should oblige her by making it a match: 'which I could not,' added he, 'have the heart to refuse to a girl that gave the boy such a good character. You'd be surprised to know how she took to him! you may be proud, says she to me, you may be proud of your son! which is what I shall never forget; for though I loved Hal just the same before, I never could tell but what it was only because he was my own. And I'm so afraid of behaving like a blind old goose, that I often snub Hal, when he's no more to blame than I am myself, for fear of his getting out of my hands, and behaving like a certain young man he has been brought up with, and who, I assure you, deserves to have his ears cropt ten times a day, for one piece of impudence or other. I should not have been sorry if he'd fallen into the water along with that old lord, whom I don't wish much good to neither; for, between friends, it seems to me that it's he that has put her out of conceit with my poor Hal: for all of a sudden, nobody can tell why nor wherefore, she takes it into her head there's nothing else worth listening to, but just his old compliments. And my poor Hal, after thinking she had such a kindness for him, that he had nothing to do but put on his best coat--for I told him I'd have none of his new-fangled modes of affronting my worthy old friend, by doing to him like a postillion, with a cropt head, and half a coat--after thinking he'd only to ask his consent, for he'd got mine without ever a word, all at once, without the least quarrel, or either I or Hal giving her the least offence, she won't so much as let him speak to her; but turns off to that old fellow that tumbled into the water there, and had near made her slip in after, if it had not been for my son's stopping her, which I sha'n't forget your kindness in letting him do; but what's more, she won't speak to me neither! though all I want is to ask her the reason of her behaviour! which I shall certainly do, if I can catch her any five minutes away from that lord; for you'll never believe what good friends we were, before she took so to him. We three, that is, she and I, and Hal, used to speak to nobody else, scarce. Poor Hal thought he'd got it all his own way. And I can't but own I thought as much myself; for there was no knowing she'd hold herself so above us, all at once. I assure you, if we don't bring her to, it will go pretty hard with us; for I like her just as well as Hal does. I'd have made over to them the best half of my income immediately.'

Edgar had never yet felt such serious displeasure against Camilla, as seized him upon this artless narrative. To have trifled thus, and, as he believed, most wantonly, with the feelings and peace of two amiable persons, whether from the vanity of making a new conquest, or the tyranny of persecuting an old one, shewed a love of power the most unjustifiable, and a levity the most unpardonable. And when he considered himself as exactly in the same suspensive embarrassment, as a young man of little more than a fortnight's acquaintance, he felt indignantly ashamed of so humiliating a rivalry, and a strong diminution of regret at his present purpose.

Melmond, meanwhile, pressed by his sister, seconded by his own sense of propriety, had forced himself to the Cleves' party; and, after bowing civilly to Miss Margland, who courteously smiled upon one who she imagined would become master of Cleves, and most profoundly to Indiana, who coloured, but deigned not the smallest salutation in return, offered his hand to Eugenia; but with a mind so absorbed, and steps so uncertain, that he was unable to afford her any assistance; and her lameness and helplessness made her so much require it, that she was in danger of falling every moment; yet she felt in Paradise; she thought him but enfeebled, as she was enfeebled herself, by a tender sensibility; and danger, therefore, was not merely braved, it was dear, it was precious to her.

Indiana now consoled her mortification, with the solace of believing a retaliation at hand, that would overcome the otherwise indelible disgrace of being superseded by Eugenia in a conquest. Full of her own little scheme, she imperiously refused all offers of aid, and walked on alone, till crossing the boat, she gave a shriek at every step, made hazardous by her wilful rejection of assistance, and acted over again the charm of terror, of which she well recollected the power upon a former occasion.

These were sounds to vibrate but too surely to the heart of Melmond; he turned involuntarily to look at her; her beauty had all its original enchantment; and he snatched away his eyes. He led on her whom still less he durst view; but another glance, thus surprised from him, shewed Indiana unguarded, unprotected; his imagination painted her immediately in a watery grave; and, seeing Eugenia safe, though not accommodated, he rushed back to the boat, and with trembling respect implored her to accept his aid.

Triumphant, now, she conceived herself in her turn, and looking at him with haughty disdain, said, she chose to go alone; and when again he conjured her not to risk her precious safety, added, 'You know you don't care about it; so pray go to your Miss Eugenia Tyrold.'

Young Melmond, delicate, refined, and well bred, was precisely amongst the first to feel, that a reply such as this must be classed amongst the reverse of those three epithets--had it come from any mouth but that of Indiana!--but love is deaf, as well as blind, to every defect of its chosen object, during the season of passion: from her, therefore, this answer, leaving unobserved the littleness and spleen which composed it, retained but so much of meaning as belongs to announcing jealousy, and in giving him that idea, filled him with sensations that almost tore him asunder.

Urged by her pique, she contrived, and with real risk, to jump into the yacht alone; though, if swayed by any less potent motive, she would sooner have remained in the boat the whole day. But what is the strength which may be put upon a par with inclination? and what the general courage that partial enterprise will not exceed?

Melmond, who only to some amiable cause could attribute whatever flowed from so beautiful an object, having once started the idea of jealousy, could give its source only to love: the impure spring of envy entered not into his suggestions. What, then, was his distraction, to think himself so greatly miserable! to believe he was secretly favoured by Indiana, at the instant of his first devoirs to another! Duty and desire were equally urgent to be heard; he shrunk in utter despondence from the two objects that seemed to personify both, and retreated, to the utmost of his power, from the sight of either.

Miss Margland had more than echoed every scream of Indiana, though nobody had seemed to hear her. Dr. Orkborne, the only beau she could compel into her service, was missing; her eye and voice alike every where demanded him in vain; he neither appeared to her view, nor answered her indignant calls.--Nor, indeed, though she forced his attendance, had she the most remote hope of inspiriting him to any gallantry: but still he was a man, and she thought it a mark of consequence to have one in her train; nor was it by any means nothing to her to torment Dr. Orkborne with her reproaches. To dispositions highly irascible, it is frequently more gratifying to have a subject of complaint than of acknowledgment.

The ladies being now all accommodated upon the deck, sailing orders were given, when an 'holla! holla!' making the company look round, Lynmere desired to be admitted. All the party intended for the yacht were already on board, and Lord Pervil told Mr. Lynmere he would find a very good place in one of the pleasure boats: but he answered he was just come from them, and preferred going in the yacht. Lord Pervil then only hoped the ladies would excuse being a little crowded. Edgar had already glided in, and Mr. Westwyn had openly declared, when asked to go to one of the boats, that he always went where Hal went, be it where it might.

Clermont, now, elbowing his way into a group of gentlemen, and addressing himself to young Halder, who was amongst them, said: 'Do you know what they've got to eat here?'

'No.'

'What the deuce! have not you examined the larder? I have been looking over the three boats,--there's nothing upon earth!--so I came to see if I could do any better here.'

Halder vowed if there were nothing to eat, he would sooner jump over board, and swim to shore, than go starving on.

'Starving?' said Mr. Westwyn, 'why I saw, myself, several baskets of provisions taken into each of the boats.'

'Only ham and fowls,' answered Clermont, contemptuously.

'Only ham and fowls? why what would you have?'

'O the d----l,' answered he, making faces, 'not that antediluvian stuff! any thing's better than ham and fowls.'

'Stilton cheese, for instance?' cried Mr. Westwyn, with a wrathful sneer, that made Clermont, who could not endure, yet, for many reasons, could not resent it, hastily decamp from his vicinity.

Mr. Westwyn, looking after the young epicure with an expression of angry scorn, now took the arm of Edgar, whose evident interest in his first communication encouraged further confidence, and said: 'That person that you see walk that way just now, is a fellow that I have a prodigious longing to give a good caning to. I can't say I like him; yet he's nephew and heir to the very best man in the three kingdoms. However, I heartily hope his uncle will disinherit him, for he's a poor fool as well as a sorry fellow. I love to speak my mind plainly.'

Edgar was ill-disposed to conversation, and intent only upon Camilla, who was now seated between Mrs. Berlinton and Eugenia, and occupied by the fine prospects every where open to her; yet he explained the error of Clermont's being heir, as well as nephew, to Sir Hugh; at which the old gentleman, almost jumping with surprise and joy, said: 'Why, then who's to pay all his debts at Leipsic? I can't say but what I'm glad to hear this. I hope he'll be sent to prison, with all my heart, to teach him a little better manners. For my old friend will never cure him; he spoils young people prodigiously. I don't believe he'd so much as give 'em a horse-whipping, let 'em do what they would. That i'n't my way. Ask Hal!'

Here he stopt, disturbed by a new sight, which displaced Clermont from his thoughts.

Camilla, to whom the beauties of nature had mental, as well as visual charms, from the blessings, as well as pleasure, she had from childhood been instructed to consider as surrounding them, was so enchanted by the delicious scenery every way courting her eyes, the transparent brightness of the noble piece of water upon which she was sailing, the richness and verdure of its banks, the still and gently gliding motion of the vessel, the clearness of the heavens, and the serenity of the air, that all her cares, for a while, would have been lost in admiring contemplation, had she not painfully seen the eternal watching of Henry for her notice, and gathered from the expression of his eyes, his intended expostulation. The self-reproach with which she felt how ill she could make her defence, joined to a sincere and generous wish to spare him the humiliation of a rejection, made her seek so to engage herself, as to prevent the possibility of his uttering two sentences following. But as this was difficult with Eugenia, who was lost in silent meditation upon her own happiness, or Mrs. Berlinton, who was occupied in examining the beauty so fatal to the repose of her brother, she had found such trouble in eluding him, that, when she saw Lord Valhurst advance from the cabin, where he had been drying and refreshing himself, she welcomed him as a resource, and, taking advantage of the civility she owed him for what he had suffered in esquiring her, gave him her sole attention; always persuaded his admiration was but a sort of old fashioned politeness, equally without design in itself, or subject for comment in others.

But what is so hard to judge as the human heart? The fairest observers misconstrue all motives to action, where any received prepossession has found an hypothesis. To Edgar this conduct appeared the most degrading fondness for adulation, and to Mr. Westwyn a tyrannical caprice, meant to mortify his son. 'I hope you saw that! I hope you saw that!' cried he, 'for now I don't care a pin for her any longer! and if Hal is such a mere fool as ever to think of her any more, I'll never see his face again as long as I live. After looking askew at the poor boy all this time, to turn about and make way for that nasty old fellow; as who should say, I'll speak to nothing but a lord! is what I shall never forgive; and I wish I had never seen the girl, nor Hal neither. I can't say I like such ways. I can't abide 'em.'

A sigh that then escaped Edgar, would have told a more discerning person, that he came in for his ample share in the same wish.

'And, after all,' continued he, 'being a lord is no such great feat that ever I could learn. Hal might be a lord too, if he could get a title. There is nothing required for it but what any man may have; nobody asks after what he can do, or what he can say. If he's got a good head, it's well; and if he has not, it's all one. And that's what you can't say of such a likely young fellow as my son. You may see twenty for one that's as well looking. Indeed, to my mind, I don't know that ever I saw a prettier lad in my life. So she might do worse, I promise her, though she has used my son so shabbily. I don't like her the better for it, I assure her; and so you may tell her, if you please. I'm no great friend to not speaking my mind.'

The fear of being too late for the evening's arrangements, made Lord Pervil, after a two hours sail, give orders for veering about: the ladies were advised to go into the cabin during this evolution, and Camilla was amongst those who most readily complied, for the novelty of viewing what she had not yet seen. But when, with the rest, she was returning to the deck, Lord Valhurst, who had just descended, entreated her to stop one moment.

Not at all conjecturing his reason, she knew not how to refuse, but innocently begged him to speak quick, as she was in haste, not to lose any of the beautiful landscapes they were passing.

'Ah what,' cried the enamoured peer, 'what in the world is beautiful in any comparison with yourself? To me no possible object can have such charms; and I have now no wish remaining but never to lose sight of it.'

Amazed beyond all measure, she stared at him a moment in silence, and then, confirmed by his looks that he was serious, would have left the cabin with precipitance: but, preventing her from passing; 'Charming Miss Tyrold!' he cried, 'let the confession of my flame meet your favour, and I will instantly make my proposals to your friends.'

To Camilla this offer appeared as little delicate, as its maker was attractive; yet she thought herself indebted for its general purport, and, as soon as her astonishment allowed her, gracefully thanked him for the honour of his good opinion, but entreated him to make no application to her friends, as it would not be in her power to concur in their consent.

Concluding this to be modest shyness, he was beginning a passionate protestation of the warmth of his regard, when the effusion was stopt by the appearance of Edgar.

Little imagining so serious a scene to be passing as the few words he now gathered gave him to understand, his perplexity at her not returning with the other ladies, made him suggest this to be a favourable moment to seize for following her himself, and demanding the sought, though dreaded conference. But when he found that his lordship, instead of making, as he had supposed, his usual fond, yet unmeaning compliments, was pompously offering his hand, he precipitately retired.

No liveliness of temper had injured in Camilla the real modesty of her character. A sense, therefore, of obligation for this partiality accompanied its surprise, and was preparing her for repeating the rejection with acknowledgments though with firmness, when the sight of Edgar brought an entirely new train of feelings and ideas into her mind. O! happy moment! thought she; he must have heard enough of what was passed to know me, at least, to be disinterested! he must see, now, it was himself, not his situation in life, I was so prompt in accepting--and if again he manifests the same preference, I may receive it with more frankness than ever, for he will see my whole heart, sincerely, singly, inviolably his own!

Bewitched with this notion, she escaped from the peer, and ran up to the deck, with a renovation of animal spirits, so high, so lively, and so buoyant, that she scarce knew what she said or did, from the uncontroulable gaiety, which made every idea dance to a happiness new even to her happy mind. Whoever she looked at, she smiled upon; to whatever was proposed, she assented: scarce could she restrain her voice from involuntarily singing, or her feet from instinctively dancing.

Edgar, compared with what he now felt, believed that hitherto he had been a stranger to what wonder meant. Is this, thought he, Camilla? Has she wilfully fascinated this old man seriously to win him, and has she won him but to triumph in the vanity of her conquest? How is her delicacy perverted! what is become of her sensibility? Is this the artless Camilla? modest as she was gay, docile as she was spirited, gentle as she was intelligent? O how spoilt! how altered! how gone!

Camilla, little suspicious of this construction, thought it would be now equally wrong to speak any more with either Henry or Lord Valhurst, and talked with all others indiscriminately, changing her object with almost every speech.

A moment's reflection would have told her, that quietness alone, in her present situation, could do justice to the purity of her intentions: but reflection is rarely the partner of happiness in the youthful breast; it is commonly brought by sorrow, and flies at the first dawn of returning joy.

Thus, while she dispensed to all around, with views the most innocent, her gay and almost wild felicity, the very delight to which she owed her animation, of believing she was evincing to Edgar with what singleness she was his own, gave her the appearance, in his judgment, of a finished, a vain, an all-accomplished coquette. The exaltation of her ideas brightened her eyes into a vivacity almost dazzling, gave an attraction to her smiles that was irresistible, the charm of fascination to the sound of her voice, to her air a thousand nameless graces, and to her manner and expression an enchantment.

Powers so captivating, now for the first time united with a facility of intercourse, soon drew around her all the attendant admiring beaux.

No animal is more gregarious than a fashionable young man, who, whatever may be his abilities to think, rarely decides, and still less frequently acts for himself. He may wish, he may appreciate, internally with justice and wisdom; but he only says, and only does, what some other man of fashion, higher in vogue, or older in courage, has said or has done before him.

The young Lord Pervil, the star of the present day, was now drawn into the magic circle of Camilla; this was full sufficient to bring into it every minor luminary of his constellation; and even the resplendent and incomparable beauty of Indiana, even the soft and melting influence of the expressively lovely Mrs. Berlinton, gave way to the superior ascendance of that varied grace, and winning vivacity, which seemed instinctively sharing with the beholders its own pleasure and animation.

To Edgar alone this gave her not new charms: he saw in her more of beauty, but less of interest; the sentence dictated by Dr. Marchmont, as the watch-word to his feelings, were she mine, recurred to him incessantly; alas! he thought, with this dissipated delight in admiration, what individual can make her happy? to the rational serenity of domestic life, she is lost!

Again, as he viewed the thickening group before her, offering fresh and fresh incense, which her occupied mind scarce perceived, though her elevated spirits unconsciously encouraged, he internally exclaimed: 'O, if her trusting father saw her thus! her father who, with all his tender lenity, has not the blind indulgence of her uncle, how would he start! how would his sense of fair propriety be revolted!--or if her mother--her respectable mother, beheld thus changed, thus undignified, thus open to all flattery and all flatterers, her no longer peerless daughter--how would she blush! how would the tint of shame rob her impressive countenance of its noble confidence!'

These thoughts were too agitating for observation; his eyes moistened with sadness in associating to his disappointment that of her revered and exemplary parents, and he retreated from her sight till the moment of landing; when with sudden desperation, melancholy yet determined, he told himself he would no longer be withheld from fulfilling his purpose.

He made way, then, to the group, though with unsteady steps; his eye pierced through to Camilla; she caught and fixt it. He felt cold; but still advanced. She saw the change, but did not understand it. He offered her his hand before Lady Pervil arose to lead the way, lest some competitor should seize it; she accepted it, rather surprized by such sudden promptness, though encouraged by it to a still further dependance upon her revived and sanguine expectations.

Yet deeper sunk this flattering illusion, when she found his whole frame was shaking, and saw his complexion every moment varying. She continued, though in a less disengaged manner, her sprightly discourse with the group; for he uttered not a word. Content that he had secured her hand, he waited an opportunity less public.

Lady Pervil, who possessed that true politeness of a well-bred woman of rank, who knows herself never so much respected as when she lays aside mere heraldic claims to superiority, would not quit the yacht of which she did the honours, till every other lady was conducted to the shore. Edgar had else purposed to have detained Camilla in the vessel a moment later than her party, to hear the very few words it was his intention to speak. Frustrated of this design, he led her away with the rest, still totally silent, till her feet touched the beach: she was then, with seeming carelessness, withdrawing her hand, to trip off to Mrs. Berlinton; but Edgar, suddenly grasping it, tremulously said: 'Will it be too much presumption--in a rejected man--to beg the honour of three minutes conference with Miss Tyrold, before she joins her party?'

A voice piercing from the deep could not have caused in Camilla a more immediate revulsion of ideas; but she was silent, in her turn, and he led her along the beach, while Mrs. Berlinton, attended by a train of beaux, went to her carriage, where, thus engaged, she contentedly waited.

'Do not fear,' he resumed, when they had passed the crowd, 'do not fear to listen to me, though, once more, I venture to obtrude upon you some advice; let it not displease you; it is in the spirit of the purest good will; it is singly, solely, and disinterestedly as a friend.'

Camilla was now all emotion; pale she turned, but Edgar did not look at her; and she strove to thank him in a common manner, and to appear cool and unmoved.

'My opinion, my fears rather, concerning Mrs. Berlinton, as I find she hopes soon for a near connexion with your family, will henceforth remain buried in my own breast: yet, should you, to any use hereafter remember them, I shall rejoice: though should nothing ever recur to remind you of them, I shall rejoice still more. Nor will I again torment you about that very underbred woman who inhabits the same house, and who every where boasts an intimacy with its two ladies, that is heard with general astonishment: nor yet upon another, and far more important topic, will I now touch,--the present evening recreation at Mrs. Berlinton's. I know you are merely a spectatress, and I will not alarm your friends, nor dwell myself, upon collateral mischiefs, or eventual dangers, from a business that in three days will end, by your restoration to the most respectable of all protections. All that, now, I mean to enter upon, all that, now, I wish to enforce, a few words will comprise, and those words will be my--'

He would have said my last but his breath failed him; he stopt; he wanted her to seize his meaning unpronounced; and, though it came to her as a thunderbolt from heaven, its very horror helped her; she divined what he could not utter, by feeling what she could not hear.

'Few, indeed,' cried he, in broken accents, 'must be these final words! but how can I set out upon my so long procrastinated tour, with an idea that you are not in perfect safety, yet without attempting to point out to you your danger? And yet,--that you should be surrounded by admirers can create no wonder;--that you should feel your power without displeasure, is equally natural;--I scarcely know, therefore, what I would urge--yet perhaps, untold, you may conceive what struggles in my breast, and do justice to the conflict between friendship and respect, where one prompts a freedom, which the other [trembles] to execute. I need not, I think, say, that to offend you is nearly the only thing that could aggravate the affliction of this parting.'--

Camilla turned aside from him; but not to weep; her spirit was now re-wakened by resentment, that he could thus propose a separation, without enquiring if she persisted to desire it.

'I tire you?' resumed he, mournfully; 'yet can you be angry that a little I linger? Farewell, however--the grave, when it closes in upon me can alone end my prayers for your felicity! I commit wholly to you my character and my conduct, with regard to your most honoured father, whom I beseech and conjure you to assure of my eternal gratitude and affection. But I am uncertain of your wishes; I will, therefore, depart without seeing him. When I return to this country, all will be forgotten--or remembered only--' by me, he meant to say, but he checked himself, and, with forced composure, went on:

'That I travel not with any view of pleasure, you, who know what I leave--how I prize what I lose,--and how lately I thought all I most coveted mine for ever, will easily believe. But if earthly bliss is the lot of few, what right had I to expect being so selected? Severe as is this moment, with blessings, not with murmurs, I quit you! blessings which my life, could it be useful to you, should consecrate. If you were persuaded our dispositions would not assimilate; if mine appeared to you too rigorous, too ungenial, your timely precaution has spared more misery than it has inflicted. How could I have borne the light, when it had shewn me Camilla unhappy--yet Camilla my own--?'

His struggle here grew vain, his voice faltered; the resentment of Camilla forsook her; she raised her head, and was turning to him her softened countenance, and filling eyes, when she saw Melmond, and a party of gentlemen, fast approaching her from Mrs. Berlinton. Edgar saw them too, and cutting short all he meant to have added, kissed, without knowing what he did, the lace of her cloak, and ejaculating, 'Be Heaven your guard, and happiness your portion!' left her hand to that of Melmond, which was held out to her, and slightly bowing to the whole party, walked slowly, and frequently looking back, away: while Camilla, nearly blinded now by tears that would no longer be restrained, kept her eyes fixedly upon the earth, and was drawn, more dead than alive, by Melmond to the coach.

Chapter II

Touches of Wit and Humour

The suddenness of this blow to Camilla, at the moment when her expectations from Edgar were wound up to the summit of all she desired, would have stupefied her into a consternation beyond even affliction, had not the mildness of his farewell, the kindness of his prayers, and the friendship of his counsels, joined to the generosity of leaving wholly to herself the account of their separation, subdued all the pride that sought to stifle her tenderness, and penetrated her with an admiration which left not one particle of censure to diminish her regret.

Melmond and his sister, always open to distress, and susceptible to pity, saw with true concern this melancholy change, and concluded that Mandlebert had communicated some painful intelligence.

She went straight to her own room, with a sign of supplication that Mrs. Berlinton would not follow; and turning quick from Mrs. Mittin, who met her at the street door.

Mrs. Berlinton yielded; but Mrs. Mittin was not easily rebuffed. She was loaded with lilac plumes, ribbands, and gauzes, and Camilla saw her bed completely covered with her new ball dress.

This sight was, at first, an aggravation of her agony, by appearing to her as superfluous as it was expensive: but wherever hope could find an aperture to creep in at, it was sure of a welcome from Camilla. Edgar was undoubtedly invited to the ball; why should he not be there? he had taken leave of her, indeed, and he certainly proposed going abroad; but could a mere meeting once more, be so repugnant as not to be endured.

The answer to this question was favourable to her wishes, for by her wishes it was framed: and the next play of her fertile and quick reviving imagination, described the meeting that would ensue, the accidents that would bring them into the same set, the circumstances that would draw them again into conversation, and the sincerity with which she would do justice to her unalterable esteem, by assuring him how injurious to it were his surmises that she thought him rigorous, austere, or in any single instance to blame.

These hopes somewhat appeased, though their uncertainty could not banish her terrors, and she was able to appear at dinner tolerably composed.

Another affair, immediately after, superseded them, for the present, by more urgent difficulties.

Soon after her arrival at Southampton, a poor woman, who washed for her, made a petition in behalf of her brother, a petty shop-keeper, who, by various common, yet pitiable circumstances of unmerited ill success in business, was unable to give either money or security to the wholesale dealers, for the renewal of his exhausted stock in trade; though the present full season, made it rational to suppose, that, if he had his usual commodities, he might retrieve his credit, save himself from bankruptcy, and his children from beggary. These last, which were five in number, were all, upon various pretences, brought to Camilla, whose pity they excited by the innocence with which they seemed ignorant of requiring it; and who received them with smiles and encouragement, however frivolous their errands, and frequent their interruptions. But the goods which their father wanted to lay in, to revive his trade, demanded full thirty pounds, which, Camilla declared, were as absolutely out of her power to give as thirty thousand, though she promised to plead to Sir Hugh for the sum, upon her return to Cleves, and was prevailed with to grant her name to this promise for the wholesale dealers. These would trust, however, to no verbal security; and Mrs. Mittin, who from collateral reasons was completely a friend of the poor man, offered to be bound for him herself, though thirty pounds were nearly her year's income, provided Camilla would sign a paper, by which she would engage upon her honour, to indemnify her of any loss she might eventually sustain by this agreement, as soon as she was of age, or should find it in her power before that time.

The seriousness of this clause, made Camilla refuse the responsibility, protesting she should have no added means in consequence of being of age. But Mrs. Mittin assured Higden, the poor man, as she assured all others, that she was heiress to immense wealth, for she had had it from one that had it from her own brother's own mouth; and that though she could not find out why she was so shy of owning it, she supposed it was only from the fear of being imposed upon.

The steadiness of Camilla, however, could not withstand her compassion, when the washerwoman brought the poor children to beg for their father; and, certain of her uncle's bounty, she would have run a far more palpable risk, sooner than have assumed the force to send them weeping away.

The stores were then delivered; and all the family poured forth their thanks.

But this day, in quitting the dining parlour, she was stopt in the hall by Higden, who, in unfeigned agonies, related, that some flasks of oil, in a small hamper, which were amongst the miscellaneous articles of his just collected stores, had, by some cruel accident, been crushed, and their contents, finding their way into all the other packages, had stained or destroyed them.

Camilla, to whose foresight misfortune never presented itself, heard this with nearly equal terror for herself, and sorrow for the poor man: yet her own part, in a second minute, appeared that of mere inconvenience, compared with his, which seemed ruin irretrievable; she sought, therefore, to comfort him; but could afford no further help, since she had painfully to beg from her uncle the sum already so uselessly incurred. He ventured still to press, that, if again he could obtain a supply, every evil chance should be guarded against; but Camilla had now learned that accidents were possible; and the fear which arises from disappointed trust, made her think of probable mischiefs with too acute a discernment, to deem it right to run again any hazard, where, if there were a failure, another, not herself, would be the sufferer. Yet the despair of the poor man induced her to promise she would write in his favour, though not act in it again unauthorised.

With feelings of still augmented discomfort, from her denial, she repaired to her toilette; but attired herself without seeing what she put on, or knowing, but by Mrs. Mittin's descriptions and boastings, that her dress was new, of the Pervil uniform, and made precisely like that of Mrs. Berlinton. Her agitated spirits, suspended, not between hope and fear, but hope and despair, permitted no examination of its elegance: the recollection of its expence, and the knowledge that Edgar thought her degenerating into coquetry, left nothing but regret for its wear.

Mrs. Berlinton, who never before, since her marriage, had been of any party where her attractions had not been unrivalled, had believed herself superior to pleasure from personal homage, and knew not, till she missed it, that it made any part of her amusement in public. But the Beauty, when first she perceives a competitor for the adulation she has enjoyed exclusively, and the Statesman, at the first turn of popular applause to an antagonist, are the two beings who, perhaps, for the moment, require the most severe display of self-command, to disguise, under the semblance of good humour or indifference, the disappointment they experience in themselves, or the contempt with which they are seized for the changing multitude.

Mrs. Berlinton, though she felt no resentment against Camilla for the desertion she had occasioned her, felt much surprize; not to be first was new to her: and whoever, in any station of life, any class of society, has had regular and acknowledged precedency, must own a sudden descent to be rather awkward. Where resignation is voluntary, to give up the higher place may denote more greatness of mind than to retain it; but where imposed by others, few things are less exhilarating to the principal, or impress less respect upon the by-stander.

Mrs. Berlinton had never been vain; but she could not be ignorant of her beauty; and that the world's admiration should be so wondrously fickle, or so curiously short-lived, as to make even the bloom of youth fade before the higher zest of novelty, was an earlier lesson than her mind was prepared to receive. She thought she had dressed herself that morning with too much carelessness of what was becoming, and devoted to this evening a greater portion of labour and study.

While Camilla was impatiently waiting, Mrs. Pollard, the washerwoman, gained admittance to her, and bringing two interesting little children of from four to five years old, and an elder girl of eleven, made them join with herself to implore their benefactress to save them all from destruction.

Higden having had the imprudence, in his grief, to make known his recent misfortune, it had reached the ears of his landlord, who already was watchful and suspicious, from a year and half arrears of his rent; and steps were immediately preparing to seize whatever was upon the premises the next morning; which, by bringing upon him all his other creditors, would infallibly immure him in the lingering hopelessness of a prison.

Camilla now wavered; the debt was but eighteen pounds; the noble largesses of her uncle in charity, till, of late, that he had been somewhat drained by Lionel, were nearly unlimited.--She paused--looked now at the pleading group, now at her expensive dress; asked how, for her own hopes, she could risk so much, yet for their deliverance from ruin so little; and with a blush turning from the mirrour, and to the children with a tear, finally consented that the landlord should apply to her the next morning.

* * * * *

Lord Pervil had some time opened the ball before Mrs. Berlinton's arrival; but he looked every where for Camilla, to succeed to a young lady of quality with whom he had danced the first two dances. He could not, however, believe he had found, though he now soon saw and made up to her. The brilliancy of her eyes was dimmed by weeping, her vivacity was changed into dejection, sighs and looks of absence took place of smiles and sallies of gaiety, and her whole character seemed to have lost its spring and elasticity. She gave him her hand, to preserve her power of giving it if claimed by Edgar, and though he had thought of her without ceasing since she had charmed him in the yacht, till he had obtained it, not a lady appeared in the room, by the time these two dances were over, that he would not more cheerfully have chosen for two more: her gravity every minute encreased, her eye rolled, with restless anxiety, every where, except to meet his, and so little were her thoughts, looks, or conversation bestowed upon her partner, that instead of finding the animated beauty who had nearly captivated him on board the yacht, he seemed coupled with a fair lifeless machine, whom the music, perforce, put in motion; and relinquished her hand with as little reluctance as she withdrew it.

Melmond had again, by his sister, been forced into the party, though with added unwillingness, from his new idea of Indiana. Now, however, to avoid that fair bane was impossible: Indiana was the first object to meet every eye, from the lustre of her beauty, and the fineness of her figure, each more than ever transcendently conspicuous, from the uniform which had obliged every other female in the room to appear in exactly the same attire. Yet great and unrivalled as was the admiration which she met, what came simply and naturally was insufficient for the thirst with which she now quaffed this intoxicating beverage; and to render its draughts still more delicious, she made Eugenia always hold by her arm. The contrast here to the spectators was diverting as well as striking, and renewed attention to her own charms, when the eye began to grow nearly sated with gazing. The ingenuous Eugenia, incapable of suspecting such a design, was always the dupe to the request, from the opinion it was made in kindness, to save her from fatigue in the eternal sauntering of a public place; and, lost to all fear, in being lost to all hope, as to her own appearance, cheerfully accompanied her beautiful kinswoman, without conjecturing that, in a company whence the illiterate and vulgar were excluded, personal imperfections could excite pleasantry, or be a subject of satire.

Camilla, who still saw nothing of Edgar, yet still thought it possible he might come, joined them as soon as she was able. Miss Margland was full of complaints about Dr. Orkborne, for his affording them no assistance in the yacht, and not coming home even to dinner, nor to attend them to Lord Pervil's; and Eugenia, who was sincerely attached to the Doctor, from the many years he had been her preceptor, was beginning to express her serious uneasiness at his thus strangely vanishing; when Clermont, with the most obstreperous laughter, made up to them, and said: 'I'll tell you a monstrous good joke! the best thing you ever heard in your life! the old Doctor's been upon the very point of being drowned!--and he has not had a morsel to eat all day!'

He then related that his man, having seen him composedly seated, and musing upon a pile of planks which were seasoning upon the beach, with his face turned away from the company to avoid its interruptions, had enquired if he had any commands at home, whither he was going: 'Not for meaning to do them,' continued Lynmere; 'No, no! catch Bob at that! but only to break in upon him; for Bob's a rare hand at a joke. He says he's ready to die with laughing, when he speaks to the old Doctor while he's studying, because he looks so much as if he wished we were all hanged. However, he answered tolerably civilly, and only desired that nobody might go into his room till he came home from the sail, for he'd forgot to lock it. So Bob, who smoked how the matter was, says: 'The sail, Sir, what are you going alone, then? for all the company's been gone these two hours.' So this put him in such a taking, Bob says he never laughed so much in his life. He jumped up as if he'd been bit: 'Gone?' says he, 'why where's Miss Eugenia, I promised Sir Hugh not to lose sight of her.' So he said he'd go after her that very moment. 'Call me a boat,' said he: just as if he'd ordered a hackney coach; for he knows about as much of winds and tides as my little bay Filly, that I bought of Halder yesterday for fifty pounds, but that I shall make worth seventy in less than a month. Well, there was nothing to be had but a small fishing boat, so Bob winks at the man to take in a friend; for he has all those fellows in a string. So in went his Latinship, and off they put. Bob fell into such a fit of laughter, he says I might have heard him a mile off. I don't think Bob has his fellow upon earth for fun.'

Eugenia now interrupted the narration, with a serious enquiry where Dr. Orkborne was at present.

Lynmere, shouting at what he thought the ridicule of this concern, answered, that Bob had told the fisherman to go about his own business, unless the Doctor offered to pay him handsomely for taking him on board the yacht; but thinking it would be a good joke to know what was become of him, he had gone himself, with Halder, and some more choice blades, to the beach, about half an hour ago, to make Bob see if the fishing boat was come in; and, by good luck, they arrived at the very nick of time, and saw the Doctor, the fish, and the fishing-tackle, all hauled out together. 'And a better sight was never seen before, I promise you!' continued Lynmere; 'I thought I should quite have burst my sides with looking at him, he was so wet and so cold, and so miserable; and when I thought of his having had no dinner, I shouted till I was ready to roll on the beach--and he smelt so of the fish, that I could have hugged Bob, 'twas such monstrous good sport. He got three half crowns in a minute for his ingenuity. Halder began;--and two others of us gave two more.'

'Poor Dr. Orkborne! and where is he now?' said Eugenia.

'Why we got about the fisherman, and then we had all the same fun over again: He says, that, at first, the poor gentleman was in a great taking, fretting and fuming, and looking out for the yacht, and seeming almost beside himself for hurry to get to it; but after that, he takes out a little red book and a pencil, and falls to writing, just as hard as if he'd come into the boat for nothing else; insomuch, that when they were just coming along-side the yacht, he never lifted up his head, nor listened to one word, but kept making a motion with his hand to be let alone: and when the man said the yacht would be passed, he bid him hold his peace, and not interrupt him so, in such a pettish manner, that the man resolved to take honest Bob's advice, and go on about his own business. And so he did, and the Doctor was as content as a lord, till he had scribbled all he could scratch out of his noddle: but then came the best sport of all; for when he had nothing more to write, and looked up, and saw the boat stock still, and the man fishing at his leisure, and heard the yacht had been bound homeward of a good hour, he was in such a perilous passion, the man says, that he actually thought he'd have jumped overboard. I'll bet what you will he won't ask Bob to call him a boat again in a hurry.'

'As to his behaviour,' said Miss Margland, 'it's the last thing in the world to surprize me, after what I have seen myself; nor any body else, I believe, neither. Who is Dr. Orkborne? I doubt much if any body ever heard his name before. I should like to know if any body can tell who was his grandfather!'

She then declared, if she could get any soul to fetch him, he should still come, if it were only that he might not pass the evening all in his own way, which would be just the thing to encourage him to hide himself out of sight, on purpose not to help them another time.

Eugenia was going to beg he might not be disturbed, when Melmond, all alacrity to seize any means of absenting himself from the two cousins, who produced in him so severe a conflict, offered his services to carry a message to the Doctor; which, being readily accepted, he set off.

Indiana and Eugenia, not wholly without similarity of sensation, looked after him. Indiana had now caught his eye; and though quickness was no part of her character, the tale it told had convinced her that her power, though no longer acknowledged was not extinguished; it required neither elemental precepts, nor sagacious perceptions, to make this discovery, and she exultingly determined to appease her late mortification, by reducing him to her feet. She stopt not to enquire what such a step might be to Eugenia, nor what was likely, or even desirable to be its event. Where narrow minds imagine they have received injury, they seek revenge rather than redress, from an opinion that such a conduct asserts their own importance.

Still vainly, and wretchedly, the eyes of Camilla sought Edgar: the evening advanced, but he came not; yet, catching at every possible chance for hope, she thought some other room that they had not visited, might be open for company, where, finally, they might meet.

Dr. Orkborne accompanied Melmond back. Miss Margland was preparing him a reproachful reception, but was so much offended by the fishy smell which he brought into the room, that she had immediate recourse to her salts, and besought him to stand out of her way. He complied without reluctance, though with high disdain.

The young ladies were all dancing. Indiana had no sooner perceived Melmond, than she determined to engage his attention: the arts of coquetry require but slender parts, where the love of admiration is potent; she pretended, therefore, to feel extremely ill, put her hand to her forehead, and telling her partner, Mr. Halder, she could not stand another minute, hastened to Miss Margland, and cast herself, as if fainting, upon her neck.

This had all the success with Melmond that his own lively imagination could give it. He flew to a side-table to get her a glass of water, which his trembling hand could scarce hold, but which she received from him with a languishing sweetness, that dissolved every tie but of love, and he 'hung over her enamoured[4];' while Miss Margland related that she could hardly keep from fainting herself, so much she had been shocked and disordered by the horrid smell of Dr. Orkborne.

[Footnote 4: Milton]

Indiana now caught the infection, and protested she was so much worse, that if she had not a little air she should die. Melmond was flying to open a window, but a lady who sat close to it, objected; and he had then recourse to two folding doors, leading to a portico open to a large garden.

Hither Indiana permitted herself to be led, and led by the thrice happy, yet thrice miserable Melmond. Miss Margland was accompanying them, but Lady Pervil, advancing to enquire what went wrong, gave her an opportunity irresistible to inveigh against Dr. Orkborne; and as her well-bred hearer, though little interested in such a detail, would not interrupt it, Indiana arrived alone in the portico with Melmond. Halder, who had danced with her, followed, but supposing Melmond the favoured man, walked singing off, and made the tour of the garden.

This situation was to Melmond as dangerous, as to Indiana it was exulting. She now suddenly withdrew her hand, with an air of poignant disdain, which the illuminated portico and house made amply visible; and when, surprised and much moved, he tremblingly enquired if she were worse, she answered, 'Why do you ask? I am sure you do not care.'

Easily deprived of all forbearance, 'Heavens!' he exclaimed, 'do I live, yet suffer this imputation! O divine Indiana! load me with every other reproach, rather than this dreadful charge of insensibility to all that is most lovely, most perfect upon earth!'

'I thought,' said Indiana, again softening her fine eyes, 'you had quite forgot me, and all the vows you made to me.'

'Wretch that I am,' cried Melmond nearly distracted by this charge, and by the regret at losing him, which seemed its purpose, 'condemned to every species of woe! O fair, angelic Indiana! in a cottage with you would I have dwelt, more delightedly, and more proudly, than any potentate in the most gorgeous palace: but, alas! from you--formed to enchant all mankind, and add grace to every dignity--from you could I dare ask such a sacrifice?'

Indiana now listened with an attentive softness no longer factitious; though all her views wafted her to splendour and high life, her ear could not withstand the romantic sound of love and a cottage; and though no character was ever less formed to know and taste the blessings such a spot may bestow and reciprocate, she imagined she might there be happy, for she considered such a habitation but as a bower of eglantine and roses, in which she might repose and be adored all day long.

Melmond saw but too quickly the relenting cast of her countenance; and ecstasy and despair combated which should bear sway in his breast. 'Ah, madam,' he cried, 'most adorable and most adored of women! you know my terrible situation, but you know not the sufferings, nor the constancy of my heart!--the persecution of friends, the pressure of distress, the hopelessness of my idolized Indiana--'

A deep sigh interrupted him--it came not from Indiana--startled, he looked round--and beheld Eugenia, leaning against the door by which she seemed to have intended entering, pale, petrified, aghast.

Shame now tied his tongue, and tingled, with quick reproach, through his whole frame. He looked at Indiana with despair, at Eugenia with remorse; injured rectitude and blushing honour urged him to the swiftest termination of so every way terrible a scene, and bowing low to Eugenia, 'I durst not, madam,' he cried, 'ever hope for your pardon! yet I rather deluded myself than deceived you when I ventured to solicit your acceptance. Alas! I am a bankrupt both in fortune and in heart, and can only pray you will hasten to forget--that you may forbear to execrate me!'

He then disappeared, finding a way out by the garden, to avoid re-entering the ball-room.

Eugenia, who, in this speech, comprehended an eternal adieu, sunk upon the seat of the portico, cold, shivering, almost lifeless. Little prepared for such an event, she had followed Indiana the moment she was disengaged from the dance, not suspicious of any tête-à-tête, from believing Halder of the party. The energy of Melmond made her approach unheard; and the words she unavoidably caught, nearly turned her to marble.

Indiana was sorry for her distress, yet felt a triumph in its cause; and wondered how so plain a little creature could take it into her head to think of marrying.

Camilla now joined them, affrighted at the evident anguish of Eugenia, who, leaning upon her affectionate bosom, had the relief excited by pity, of bursting into tears, while despondingly she uttered: 'All is over, my sister, and over for life with Eugenia! Melmond flies and detests me! I am odious in his sight! I am horror to this thoughts!'

Camilla wept over her in silent, but heart-breaking sympathy. Indiana returned to the dance: but the two suffering sisters remained in the portico till summoned to depart. They were insensible to the night air, from the fever of their minds. They spoke no more; they felt the insufficiency of words to express their griefs, and their mutual compassion was all that softened their mutual sorrows.

Chapter III

An Adieu

Lost to all happiness, and for the first time in her life, divested of hope, Camilla at a late hour returned to Mrs. Berlinton's. And here, her heart-breaking disappointment received the cruel aggravation of the most severe self-reproach, when, in facing the mirror to deposit her ornaments upon the toilette table, she considered the expensive elegance of her whole dress, now, even in her own estimation, by its abortive purpose, rendered glaringly extravagant. Since her project had failed, she saw the impropriety of having risked so much in its attempt; and a train of just reflections ensued, to which her understanding was always equal, though her gaiety was seldom disposed. 'Would Edgar,' thought she, 'wait the event of a meeting at a ball to decide his conduct? Had he not every title to claim a conference with me, if he had the smallest inclination? Rejected as he calls himself, I had not pretended to demand our separation from any doubts, any displeasure of my own. From the moment he suffered me to quit, without reclamation, the roof under which I had proposed our parting, I ought to have seen it was but his own desire, perhaps design, I was executing. And all the reluctance he seemed to feel, which so weakly I attributed to regard, was but the expiring sensibility of the last moment of intercourse. Not with murmurs, he says, he will quit me--nor with murmurs will I now resign him!--with blessings, he says, he leaves me--O Edgar! mayest thou too be blest! The erring and unequal Camilla deserved thee not!'

A more minute examination of her attire was not calculated to improve her serenity. Her robe was everywhere edged with the finest Valencienne lace; her lilac shoes, sash, and gloves, were richly spangled with silver, and finished with a silver fringe; her ear-rings and necklace were of lilac and gold beads; her fan and shoe roses were brilliant with lilac foil, and her bouquet of artificial lilac flowers, and her plumes of lilac feathers, were here and there tipt with the most tiny transparent white beads, to give them the effect of being glittering with the dew.

Of the cost of all this she was no judge, but, certain its amount must be high, a warm displeasure arose against the incorrigible Mrs. Mittin, who had not only taken the pattern, but the value of Mrs. Berlinton's dress for her guide: and a yet greater dissatisfaction ensued with herself, for trusting the smallest commission to so vain and ungovernable an agent. She could only hope to hoard the payment from the whole of her next year's allowance, by living in so forbearing and retired a manner, as to require nothing for herself.

The new, but all powerful guest which now assailed her, unhappiness, had still kept her eyes from closing, when she was called up to Mr. Tennet, the landlord of Higden. Her fuller knowledge of her own hopeless debts, could not make her faithless to her engagement; for her acquaintance with misery awakened but more pity for the misery of others. She admitted him, therefore, without demur; and found he was a land surveyor, who had often been employed by Sir Hugh at Cleves. He accepted her verbal promise to be answerable for the rent now due, declining her note of hand, which her minority made illegal, and engaging not to hurry her for the money; well satisfied, by the Tyrold character in the whole county, he might abide by her word of honour, founded upon the known munificence of her uncle.

This delay was a relief, as it saved a partial demand, that must have forced an abrupt confession of her own debts, or have deceived the baronet into a belief she had nothing to solicit.

When this business was transacted, she hastened to Eugenia, to console whose sufferings was all that could mitigate her own.

One of the maids then came to say she had forgotten to inform her, that, some time after she had set out for Lord Pervil's a stranger, much muffled up, and with a hat flapped over his face so as wholly to hide it, had enquired for her, and seemed much disturbed when he heard she was at the ball, but said he would call again the next day at noon.

No conjecture occurred to Camilla but that this must be Edgar; it was contrary to all probability; but no other image could find way to her mind. She hastened, inexpressibly perturbed, to her sister, determining to be at home before twelve o'clock, and fashioning to herself all the varieties such a meeting could afford; every one of which, however they began, ended regularly with a reconciliation.

She found Eugenia weeping in bed. She embraced her with the extremest tenderness: 'Ah my sister!' said the unhappy mourner, 'I weep not for my disappointment, great as it may be--and I do not attempt describing it!--it is but my secondary sorrow. I weep, Camilla, for my own infatuation! for the folly, the blindness of which I find myself culpable. O Camilla! is it possible I could ever--for a moment, a single moment, suppose Melmond could willingly be mine! could see his exquisite susceptibility of every thing that is most perfect, yet persuade myself, he could take, by choice, the poor Eugenia for his wife! the mangled, deformed,--unfortunate Eugenia!'

Camilla, touched to the heart, wept now more than her sister. 'That Eugenia,' she cried, 'has but to be known, to leave all beauty, all figure, every exterior advantage aloof, by the nobler, the more just superiority of intrinsic worth. Let our estimates but be mental, and who will not be proud to be placed in parallel with Eugenia?'

She was then beginning her own sad relation, when an unopened letter upon the toilette table caught her eye. It had been placed there by Molly Mill, who thought her mistress asleep. Struck by the shape of the seal, Camilla rose to examine it: what was her palpitation, then, to see the cypher E M, and, turning to the other side, to perceive the hand writing of Edgar!

She put it into her sister's hand, with expectation too big for speech. Eugenia opened it, and they read it silently together.

To Miss EUGENIA TYROLD.

Southampton.

'Tis yet but a short time--in every account but my own--since I thought myself forming a legal claim to address Miss Eugenia Tyrold as my sister. Every other claim to that affectionate and endearing title has been hers beyond her own memory; hers by the filial love I bear her venerated parents; hers, by the tender esteem due to the union of almost every virtue. These first and early ties must remain for ever. Disappointment here cannot pierce her barbarous shafts, fortune cannot wanton in reversing, nor can time dissolve them.----

'O Edgar!' exclaimed Camilla, stopping the reading, and putting her hand, as in benediction, upon the paper, 'do you deign to talk of disappointment? do you condescend to intimate you are unhappy? Ah, my Eugenia, you shall clear this dreadful error!--'tis to you he applies--you shall be peace-maker; restorer!'

Eugenia dried her tears at the thought of so sweet an office, and they read on.

Of the other--yet nearer claim, I will not speak. You have probably known longer than myself, its annihilation, and I will not pain your generous heart with any view of my sufferings in such a deprivation. I write but to take with my pen the leave I dare not trust myself to take by word of mouth; to wish to your opening prospects all the happiness that has flown mine, and to entreat you to answer for me to the whole of your loved family, that its name is what, through life, my ear with most reverence will hear, my heart with most devotion will love.

EDGAR MANDLEBERT.

At the kind wish upon her own opening prospects, Eugenia wept afresh; but when Camilla took the letter to press to her lips and her heart what he said of his sufferings, she perceived at the doubling down, two lines more:--

I am this moment leaving Southampton for the Isle of Wight, whence I shall sail to the first port, that the first vessel with which I may meet shall be bound.

'No, my dear Eugenia,' cried she, then colouring, and putting down the letter, 'your mediation will be spared. He acquaints us he is quitting England. He can only mention it to avoid the persecution of an answer. Certainly none shall be obtruded upon him.'

Eugenia pleaded that still a letter might overtake him at the Isle of Wight, and all misunderstanding might be rectified. 'And then, my sister, all may be well, and your happiness renewed.--It has not flown you--like that of Eugenia--from any radical cause. Her's is not only gone, past all resource, but has left behind it disgrace with sorrow, derision with disappointment!'

Camilla strove to soothe her, but would no longer listen to any mediation; she resolved, at once, to write of the separation to her father, and beseech him to send for her to Etherington, and never again suffer her to quit that roof, where alone her peace was without disturbance, her conduct without reproach. Even her debts, now, she felt equal to avowing, for as, far from contracting new ones, she meant in future to reside in complete obscurity, she hoped the feelings of this moment would procure pardon for her indiscretions, which her own sedulous future oeconomy should be indefatigable to repair.

Eugenia would not strive longer against a procedure which she deemed dignified, and the departure of Camilla was hurried by a messenger, who brought word that the strange man, with the flapped hat, was returned, and entreated her, for Heaven's sake, to let him speak with her one moment.

Dead, now, to the hope she had entertained of this enquirer, she merely from his own urgency complied with his call; for her curiosity was gone since she now knew it could not be Edgar.

* * * * *

Edgar, indeed, was actually departed. His heart was loaded with sorrow, his prospect seemed black with despondence; but Camilla was lost to that perfect confidence, and unbounded esteem, he required to feel for his wife, and no tenderness without them, no partial good opinion, nor general admiration, could make him wish to lead her to the altar. 'No!' cried he, 'Dr. Marchmont; you judged me better than my first passion, and her untried steadiness enabled me to judge myself. Misery only could have followed my view of her in the mixt society in which the thousand accidents of life might occasionally have placed us. I can only be happy with a character as simple in the world, as in retirement; as artless at an assembly, as in a cottage. Without that heavenly simplicity, the union of all else that renders life desirable, were vain! without that--all her enchanting qualities, with which nothing can vie, and which are entwined around my heart-strings, were ineffectual to my peace.'

'You are right,' said the Doctor, 'and your timely caution, and early wisdom, will protect you from the bitterness of a personal experience like mine. With all the charms she assembles, her character seems too unstable for private domestic life. When a few years more have blunted the wild vivacity, the floating ambition, the changing propensities which now render her inconsistent to others, and fluctuating even to herself, she may yet become as respectable, as she must always be amiable. But now, ... whoever takes her from the circle in which she is playing, will see her lost to all gaiety, though without daring to complain, from the restraint of bidden duties, which make the bidder a tyrant.'

Edgar shrunk from such a part, and immediately prepared for his long projected tour.

He had, originally, purposed visiting Mr. Tyrold before he set out, and conversing with him upon the state of danger in which he thought his daughter; but his tenderness for her feelings, during his last adieu, had beguiled him of this plan, lest it should prove painful, injurious, or inauspicious to her own views or designs in breaking to her friends their breach. He now addressed a few lines to his revered guardian, to be delivered by Dr. Marchmont; to whom he gave discretionary powers, if any explanation should be demanded; though clogged with an earnest clause, that he would neither advance, nor confess any thing that could hurt Camilla, even a moment, unless to avert from her some danger, or substantiate some good.

Dr. Marchmont determined to accompany him to the Isle of Wight, whither he resolved to go, and wait for his baggage; and undertook the superintendance of his estate and affairs in his absence.

When they were summoned to the little vessel, Edgar changed colour, his heart beat quick, and he sighed rather than breathed. He held his hand upon his eyes and forehead for a few minutes, in agony inexpressible, then silently gave his servant the letter he had written for Eugenia, took the Doctor by the arm, walked to the beach, and got aboard; his head still turned wholly towards the town, his eyes looking above it, as if seeking to fix the habitation of Camilla. Dr. Marchmont sought to draw his attention another way, but it was rivetted to the spot they were quitting.

'I feel truly your unhappiness, my dear Mandlebert,' said he, 'that this young creature, with defects of so cruel a tendency, mingles qualities of so endearing a nature. Judge, however, the predominance of what is faulty, since parents so exemplary have not been able to make the scales weigh down on the side of right. Alas! Mr. Tyrold has himself erred, in committing, at so early a period, her conduct into her own reins. The very virtues, in the first youth, are so little regulated by reflection, that, were [they] not watched nor aided, they run into extremes nearly as pernicious, though not so unamiable as the vices. What instance more than this now before us can shew the futility of education, and the precariousness of innate worth, when the contaminating world is allowed to seize its inexperienced prey, before the character is fixed as well as formed?'

A deeply assenting sigh broke from the bosom of Edgar, whose strained eyes held their purpose, till neither beach, nor town, nor even a spire of Southampton, were discernible. Again, then, for a moment, he covered them with his hand, and exclaimed: 'Farewell! Camilla, farewell!'

Chapter IV

A modest Request

Quick, though without a wish of speed, was the return home of Camilla; she felt at this moment in that crushed and desolate state, where the sudden extinction of hope leaves the mind without energy to form even a wish. She was quick only because too nervous to be slow, and hurried on, so little knowing why, that when she came to Mrs. Berlinton's, she was running to her own room, wholly forgetting what had called her from Eugenia, till the servant said, 'this is the man, ma'am.'

She then saw, parading up and down the hall, a figure wrapt round in a dark blue roquelo, with no part of his face visible, from the flaps of his hat.

At another time she might have been startled: but she was now indifferent to everything, and only enquired what was his business.

He made no answer but by a low bow, pointing, at the same time to the door of one of the parlours, and then, in a supplicating manner, putting together his hands, as if begging to speak to her in private.

Careless, rather than courageous, she was going into an empty room with him, when the servant whispered her to be upon her guard, as the man had a very suspicious look.

Stopping short, then, she again repeated her question, adding, 'I can hear anything you have to say where we now are.'

The stranger shook his head, with a motion towards the servant, that seemed to demand his absence.

Alas! thought she, it is some gentleman in distress, who wants to beg and is ashamed. I have nothing to give him! I will, at least, therefore, not insist upon his exposing himself. She then whispered the footman to keep in the hall, and near the parlour, which she entered, telling the incognito he might follow.

But she was seriously alarmed out of her apathy, upon seeing him cautiously shut the door, and sedulously examine the apartment.

She wanted not presence of mind, when not robbed of it by some peculiar and poignant feelings. She turned immediately to the bell, certain its first touch would bring in the footman: but, perceiving her purpose, the stranger seized her by the arm, and in a hoarse low voice said: 'Are you mad, Camilla? don't you know me?' and she recognized her brother.

She expostulated upon his having so causelessly terrified her, and enquired why he came so disguised.

He laughed heartily at her affright, and extolled his own skill in personating a subtle ruffian; declaring he liked to have a touch at all trades, in case of accidents.

'And have you come hither, Lionel, only for this foolish and very unpleasant trick?'

'O no, my dear! this was only for my opening. I have an hundred smart freaks in my head, any one of them worth a little trip to Southampton. Besides, I wanted to know what you were about. How does a certain master Edgar Mandlebert do? Don't blush, child. What a little sly rogue you have been! hey ho? Tears?--My dear Camilla! what's all this?'

She entreated him to make his enquiries of Eugenia.

'Well, you took me in, I promise you. I fully thought the young Baronet had been the man. And, really he's as fine a fellow as I ever saw.'

'Do not speak of him, I beg! O Lionel!--if you knew--' She was going to say, how through your means, that affair has injured me--but she checked complaints which she now regarded as useless, and therefore degrading; and, wiping her eyes, asked if he had yet considered the large sum, for the obligation of which he had made her seem responsible to Sir Sedley, whom she should not know how ever to meet, nor consequently, how ever to visit in the county, till some payment, if not made, were at least arranged.

'Pho, pho, my dear child, don't be so Vellum-like; you'll be fit for nothing, soon, but to file bills and score accounts. What's two hundred to him? Hang him! I wish 'twere as much again--I hate making a fuss about nothing. But come, tell me something to raise my spirits--I am horribly melancholy. I've some notion of making a little sport here with Miss Scare-crow. How does she go on? Waspish as ever?'

'Do tell me, seriously, Lionel, what it is has brought you hither?'

'Two things, my dear. The first of which is the pleasure of seeing you; and the second, is a little amusement I propose myself with old Dr. Hic, Hæc, Hoc. I find Clermont's had rare sport with him already. It's deuced unlucky I did not come sooner.'

'Clermont? When did you see Clermont?'

'Don't be curious, child. I never encourage curiosity. It always leads to disagreeable questions. You may tell me any thing you please, but ask nothing. That's my manner of dealing with little girls. How did you like my sending the Major to you? Was not that good fudge? What do you look so grave for, my dear? You're enough to give one the vapours.'

Camilla attempted not to rally; she felt pierced as by a poniard at the very sight of Lionel. The debt he had made her contract with Sir Sedley, the secrecy it exacted, the correspondence it had drawn on, the cruel circumstances it had produced, and the heart-breaking event to which it had, ultimately, led, made his view excite sensations too corrosive, and reflections too bitter, for any enjoyment of a gaiety, which her utmost partiality could not disentangle from levity the most unfeeling.

'Come, come, for pity's sake, be a little less stupid, I conjure you. How terribly you want a good shaking! shall I give you one? By the way, you have never thanked me for sending you that smart young tinker. You are horribly ungrateful to all my tender care to provide you a good spouse. What! not a smile? Not one dear little dimple for all my rattle? Nay, then, if that's the case, let's to business at once. Anything is better than mawkishness. I always preferred being flogged for a frolic, to being told I was a good boy, at the expence of sitting still, and learning my lesson.'

'And what business, my dear Lionel? Have you really any?'

'O yes, always; nobody has more; only I do it so briskly, people always suppose it nothing but pleasure. However, just at this minute, I am really in rather an ugly dilemma. You know, my dear girl, there is a certain little rather awkward affair of mine, which I once hinted to you.'--

'Lionel, I hope, at least,----'

'O, none of your hopes with that grave face! Hope, with a grave face, always means fear. Now, as I am already half shoes over in the slough of despond, 'twill be horrid ungenerous to poke me still lower.'

Camilla now began to tremble, and would ask no questions--Lionel, when he had silenced her, seemed at a loss how to proceed; he walked about the room with quick jerks, opened and shut the window, seated himself upon every chair, and every table; and then, in a half passion, said: 'so you don't want to hear any more? and you don't care a fig if I'm hanged or drowned?'

'My spirits are not high, my dear Lionel; and my head is full, and my heart is oppressed: if you have any thing, therefore, important to say, speak, I beg without trifling.'

'Nay, there's nothing new; so don't look frightened; it's all the same old story.'

'You continue, then, that dark, mysterious connexion? O brother!'

'Why she's so pretty! so monstrous pretty! besides, she doats upon me. You don't half conceive what a pretty fellow I am, Camilla. A sister never knows how to judge a man. All the women like me prodigiously.'

'Indeed, Lionel, you take an undue advantage of my affection. I must seriously insist that you mention this subject to me no more.'

'I don't intend it. I intend to finish with this once--provided you do me one last good turn. Will you, now? Come, don't be queer.'

'I will do nothing, absolutely nothing in so improper--so shocking a business. Indeed, I know not how to forgive you for naming it again.'

'Well, then, I'll pledge you my word and honour you shall never hear of it more, if you'll only grant me this one favour.'

Displeased at the past, and frightened for what might be to come, she protested she would immediately leave the room, if he continued this persecution: adding, 'how affectionately I love you, I need not, I am sure, say; but a confidence such as this, from a brother to a sister, disgraces us both: and let me penetrate, but not irritate you, if I own, that I much doubt whether I ought not from the beginning, to have revealed this transaction at Etherington. Do not be angry Lionel: has not every consideration been surmounted by the fear of giving you pain?'

Finding he still would be heard, she was peremptorily quitting the room; but when she had her hand upon the door, he effectually stopt her, by saying, 'Nay, then, if nothing will content you but getting the whole out at once, you may make yourself easy, the business is at end, for----we're blown!'

'I must certainly be glad if such a business is at an end, Lionel; but how do you mean blown? to whom? in what manner?'

'To every body, I'm afraid; for the husband's upon the point of getting at it.'

'Husband?'

'O, the deuce! I did not mean to say that: however, it's out! and as it must have been known sooner or later----'

Camilla now had an air the nearest to severity she had ever worn: 'Adieu, Lionel!' she cried, 'I am sorry for you, indeed; but you must find another hearer for this guilty history.--I will listen no more!'

Lionel now detained her by force. 'How can you take up the thing so wrong,' said he; 'when I tell you it's over, isn't that enough? Besides, I promise you I have not wanted for my punishment: when you hear all, you'll find that.'

Too sick for speech, yet too weak for resistance, she was constrained to return to her seat, and hear what he pleased to relate.

'My adventure, my dear, was discovered entirely by the want of a little hush money. 'Tis the very deuce and all for a man to be in love when he is poor. If I had only had a little hush-money--yes, yes, I understand that eye! but as to those paltry sums I have had, from time to time, since this affair, why they could not be expected to last for ever: And the first went to a housemaid,--and the second to the groom,--and the third----'

'Lionel! Lionel! is this a communication--are these particulars for me?'

'Nay, I only mention it to let you know it's all gone fairly. Besides, as to her being a married woman, which, I see, is what you think so much the worst of all, I assure you, if you knew her husband, you would not wonder; he deserves every thing. Such a tiresome quiz! It was often hours before we could get rid of him. You never knew such a blockhead. The poor thing can't bear him. But she's fond of me to distraction. Nay, nay, don't frown so! If you'll believe me, Camilla, you'll quite spoil your face. Well, the fellow that threatens to betray us, won't keep our secret under three hundred pounds! There's an unconscionable knave! However, I thought that better than a trial too; not that she would have broken her heart at a separation, you'll believe; but then ... there's a certain horrid thing called damages! And then my father's particularities,--and my mother's seeing things in such strong lights--and a parson's son,--and all that.'--

Camilla, shaking and pale, now entreated him to get her a glass of water, and, for a while, at least, to forbear continuing this terrible story.

He consented to ring for the water, and then, more briefly, went on.

'Finding it vain to hope any longer for entire concealment, I thought a private discovery less shocking than a public one; and therefore, telling my story as well as I could, I stated that three hundred pounds would save both the expences and publicity of a trial; and, with every possible profession of contrition and reformation, I humbly petitioned for that sum from my uncle.'

'My poor uncle! alas! what unreasonable--unmerciful claims every way surround him!'

'He's well revenged for mine, I promise you! There's no plague lost between us, as you'll own, when you've heard the end of my poor petition. I followed up my letter, according to my usual custom, the next day, in order to receive my money, knowing poor uncle hates writing worse than giving: well, and when I arrived, my mind just made up to a few gentle reprimands against naughtiness, and as many gentle promises to do so no more; out pops me the old butler, and says his master can't see me! Not see me? Why, who's with him? Your father, Sir! O,--then for your life, cries I, don't say I have been here--but now--Camilla will you think me punished or not?--My uncle had a little gout in his right-hand, and had made my father open and read--that very day,--all his letters! If ever you knew old Nick serve a poor young fellow a worse turn than that, tell me so? I owe him such a grudge for it, I could almost find [it] in my heart to turn parson myself.'

Camilla could not utter a word. She dropt her head over her folded arms upon the table, to hide her offending brother from her sight, whom now, placed in opposition to her all-excellent father, she blamed beyond her powers, beyond what she conceived even her rights of expression.

'Why now, my dear Camilla, what do you hide your face for? Do you think I'm not as sorry for this thing as you can be for the life of you? However, now comes the worst; and if you don't pity me when you hear this, you may depend upon it you have no bowels. I was making off as fast as I could, mum the word to the servants, when in comes old Jacob with a letter. I snatched it from him, hoping my uncle had privately sent me a draft--but the direction was written by my father! Don't you begin to feel a little for me now?'

She could only raise her head to ejaculate, 'My poor--poor father!' and then, nearly in an agony, drop it again.

'Hey-day, Camilla? how's this? what! not one word of poor, poor brother, too? why you are harder than flint. However, read that letter. And then, if you don't think me the most unhappy young fellow in existence, you are fit to devise tortures for the inquisition.'

She took the letter eagerly, yet awfully, kissed in weeping the hand-writing, and read what follows:

To LIONEL TYROLD, Esq.

To have brought up my family with the purity of principle which the holy profession of their father ought to inspire him to teach, has been, from the hour that my paternal solicitudes commenced, the most fervent of my prayers. How my hopes have been deluded you have but too long known; how grossly they have failed has reached my own knowledge but this moment. I here resign the vain expectation, that through my son the community might bless me: may a forfeiture so dread not extend to me, also, through my daughters!--

Camilla stopt, sunk upon her knees, and devoutly repeated the last sentence, with her own ardent supplications joined to it before she could proceed.

A few words more must, for the present, suffice between us. Accident, by throwing into my hands this last letter to the uncle whose goodness you have most unwarrantably and unfeelingly abused, has given birth to an investigation, by which I have arrived at the discovery of the long course of rapacity by which you have pillaged from the same source. Henceforth, you will find it dry. I have stated to my brother the mistake of his compliance, and obtained his solemn word, that all intercourse between you, that has not my previous approbation, shall here finally cease. You will now, therefore, empty no more those coffers which, but for you, have only been opened to the just claims of benevolence.

You will regard this detection as the wrath of ill-fortune; I view it, on the contrary, as the mercy of Providence. What were further pecuniary exonerations, but deeper plunges into vilifying dissoluteness? If, as you intimate, the refusal of your present demands will expose you to public shame, may its shock awaken feelings that may restore you to private virtue! I cannot spare you from disgrace, by aiding you in corruption; I cannot rescue you from worldly dishonour, by hiding and abetting crimes that may unfold to eternal misery. To errour I would be lenient; to penitence I would be consoling; to reformation I would open my arms: but to him who confesses his guilt only to save himself from punishment, to him who would elude the incurred penalties of his wickedness, by shamelessly soliciting a respectable old relation to use bribery for its concealment,--to him, I can only say, since all precepts of virtue have failed to shew thee its excellence, go! learn of misfortune the evils, at least of vice! Pay to the laws of society what retribution they require for their violation--and if suffering should lead to contrition, and seclusion from the world bring thee back to rectitude, then thou may'st find again thy father

AUGUSTUS TYROLD.

Another name I mention not. I present not to this sullied page an image of such purity: yet, if thy own thoughts dare paint it to thy view, will not thy heart, O Lionel! smite thee and say,--From her native land, from her sorrowing husband, from daughters just opening into life, by my follies and indiscretions I have driven my mother--by my guilt I shall make her blush to return to them?--

Camilla wept over this letter till its characters were almost effaced by her tears. To withhold from her father the knowledge of the misconduct of Lionel, what had she not suffered? what not sacrificed? yet to find it all unavailing, to find him thus informed of his son's wanton calls for money, his culpable connection, and his just fears of seeing it published and punished,--and to consider with all this, that Edgar, through these unpardonable deviations from right, was irretrievably lost to her, excited sorrow the most depressing for her father, and regrets scarce supportable for herself.

'Well,' cried Lionel, 'what do you think of my case now? Don't you allow I pay pretty handsomely for a mere young man's gambol? I assure you I don't know what might have been the consequence, if Jacob had not afforded me a little comfort. He told me you were going to be married to 'squire Mandlebert, and that you were all at Southton, and that he was sure you would do any thing in the world to get me out of jeopardy; and so, thinking pretty much the same myself, here I am! Well, what say you, Camilla? Will you speak a little word for me to Edgar?'

Shame, now taking place of affliction, stopt her tears, which dried upon her burning cheeks, as she answered, 'He is well known to you, Lionel:--you can address him yourself!'

'No; that's your mistake, my dear. I have a little odd money matter to settle with him already; and besides, we have had a sort of a falling out upon the subject; for when I spoke to him about it last, he gave himself the airs of an old justice of the peace, and said if he did not find the affair given up, nothing should induce him ever to help me again. What a mere codger that lad has turned out!'

'Ah, noble Edgar! just, high-principled, and firm!' half pronounced Camilla, while again the icicles dissolved, and trickled down her face.

'See but the different way in which things strike people! however, it is not very pretty in you, Camilla, to praise him for treating me so scurvily. But come, dost think he'll lend me the money?'

'Lend,' repeated she, significantly.

'Ay lend; for I shall pay it every farthing; and every thing else.'

'And how? And when?'

'Why,--with old unky Relvil's fortune.'

'For shame, brother!'

'Nay, nay, you know as well as I do, I must have it at last. Who else has he to leave it to? Come, will you beg the three hundred for me? He dare not refuse you, you know, in your day of power.'

'Lionel,' cried she, with extreme emotion, 'I shall see him no more! nor, perhaps may you!--He has left England.'

'Impossible! why Jacob told me unky was working night and day at preparations for your keeping the wedding at Cleves.'

'I cannot talk upon this subject. I must beseech you to reserve your enquiries for Eugenia.'

'I must go to her then, directly. I have not a moment to lose. If you won't make Edgar help me in this business--and I know he won't do it of his own accord, I am utterly done up. There will remain but one single thing for me. So now for my roquelo. But do only tell me, Camilla, if you ever knew such a poor unlucky wight? for before I came to you, certain it would not be easy to make that young prig do any thing he had already declared against, I found out cousin Clermont. What a handsome coxcomb that is! Well, I told him my case, for one young fellow soon comprehends the difficulties of another, and begged him to ask for the money of uncle Hugh, as if for himself, telling him, that as he was a new-comer, and a new beginner, he could not so readily be refused; and promising to serve him as good a turn myself, when he had got a little into our ways, and wanted it, with my good uncle Relvil. Well! what do you think was the next news? It's enough to make a man's hair stand on end, to see what a spite fortune has taken to me! Do you know he has got debts of his own, of one sort or another, that poor unky has never heard of, to the amount of upwards of a thousand pounds?'

He then muffled himself up and departed.

Chapter V

A Self-dissection

Camilla remained in a state of accumulated distress, that knew not upon what object most to dwell: her father, shocked and irritated beyond the mild endurance of his character; her brother, wantonly sporting with his family's honour, and his own morals and reputation; her uncle, preparing for nuptials broken off without his knowledge; Edgar, by a thousand perversities of accident, of indiscretion, of misunderstanding, for ever parted from her;--rushed all together upon her mind, each combating for precedence, each individually foiled, yet all collectively triumphant. Nor were even these her sole subjects of affliction: yet another cause was added, in debts contracted from mingled thoughtlessness, inexperience, and generosity, augmented to she knew not what sum, and to be paid by she knew not what means. And this topic, which in itself seemed to her the least interesting, soon, by the circumstances with which it was connected, grew the most pressing of any. How, at a moment like this, could she make her purposed confession to her father, whose wounded mind demanded all she could offer of condolement? How call upon her uncle to be responsible for what she owed, when she now knew the enormous accounts preparing for him from Clermont, of which he was himself yet uninformed?

* * * * *

Lionel soon returned. 'So it's really all off?' he cried; 'dame Fortune, methinks, has a mind to give me a taste of her art that I shan't easily forget. Eugenia would tell me no particulars. But, since things are thus, there is only one step left for poor Pillgarlick. I must whisk over to the Continent.'

'To the Continent? without consulting my father? without--'

'My father?--Why, you see he gives me up. He thinks--I thank him!--a little wholesome discipline will do me good. Don't you understand what he means by seclusion from the world? A prison, my dear! a gaol! However, I'm not quite of that opinion. I really think a man's as well off in a little open air. So fare thee well, child. As soon as ever my dear uncle Relvil says good night, I'll come home again, and wish you all good morning.'

'Lionel! Lionel!--'

'Well, well! I know it's very wrong, and all that; so say nothing. Don't distress me, I beg, for I hate to be hipped. Besides, old Relvil don't deserve much better; why can't he behave like a man, and settle an annuity upon himself, and an old servant, and a dog, and a cat, and a parrot, and then let an honest young fellow see a little of the world handsomely, and like a gentleman? But your bachelor uncles, and maiden aunts, are the most tantalizing fellows and fellowesses in the creation.'

He then kissed her, and was going; but, earnestly detaining him, she conjured that he would let her first hint his design to their father, that at least it might be set aside, if it would still more deeply disturb him.

'No, child, no; I know his way of reasoning already. He thinks every man should pay for what he owes, either with money or stripes. Now my poor dear little body is not of that opinion. And what would they get by having me shut up in prison? And I'll defy 'em to cast me in any other damages. I've a few debts, too, of my own, that make me a little uneasy. I don't mean to trades people; they can wait well enough; our credit is good: but a man looks horrid small, walking about, when he can't pay his debts of honour. However, when I disappear, perhaps my father will take compassion upon my character. If not, the Relvil estate shall wipe off all in the long run.'

'And is it possible, Lionel, thus lightly, thus negligently, thus unmoved, you can plan such a journey? such an exile?'

'Why what can I do? what can I possibly do? I am obliged to be off in my own defence. Unless, indeed, I marry little Miss Dennel, which I have once or twice thought of; for she's a monstrous fool. But then she is very rich. How should you like her for a sister? Nay, nay, I'm serious. Don't shake your head as if I was joking. What do you think of her for my spouse?'

'She is a good girl, I believe, Lionel, though a simple one; and I should be sorry to see her unhappy; and how could either of you be otherwise, with contempt such as this?'

'Bless thy heart, my little dear, what have husbands and wives to do with making one another unhappy? Prithee don't set about forming thy notions of married people from the parsonage-house, and conclude a wife no better than a real rib, sticking always close to a man's side. You grow so horrid sententious, I really begin to believe you intend to take out your diploma soon, and put on the surplice my father meant for his poor son.'

'Alas, Lionel!--how changed, how hard--forgive me if I say how hard must you be grown, to be capable of gaiety and rattle at this period!'

'You'll die an old maid, Camilla, take my word for it. And I'm really sorry, for you're not an ugly girl. You might have been got off. But come, don't look so melancholy at a little silly sport. The world is so full of sorrow, my dear girl, so little visited by happiness, that cheerfulness is almost as necessary as existence, in such a vale of tears.'

'What can induce you to laugh, Lionel, at such words?'

'I can't help it, faith! I was thinking I spoke so like a parson's son!'

Camilla cast up her eyes and hands: 'Lionel,' she cried, 'what have you done with your heart? has it banished every natural feeling? has the affecting letter of the best of fathers, his cruel separation from the most excellent of mothers, and even your own dreadfully censurable conduct, served but to amuse you with ridicule and derision?'

'Camilla,' cried he, taking her hands, 'you wrong me! you think I have no feeling, because I am not always crying. However, shall I tell you the truth? I hate myself! and so completely hate myself at this moment, that I dare not be grave! dare not suffer reflection to take hold of me, lest it should make life too odious for me to bear it. I have run on from folly to wickedness for want of thought; and now thought is ready to come back, I must run from that, for want of fortitude. What has bewitched me, I know no more than you; but I never meant to play this abominable part. And now, if I did not flog up my spirits to prevent their flagging, I suppose I should hang or drown. And, believe me, if I were condemned to the galleys, I should think it less than I deserve; for I hate myself, I repeat--I honour my father, though I have used him so ill; I love my mother,--for all her deuced severity,--to the bottom of my soul; I would cut off my left arm for Lavinia and Eugenia; and for thee, Camilla, I would lop off my right!--But yet, when some frolic or gambol comes into my way, I forget you all! clear out of my memory you all walk, as if I had never beheld you!'

Camilla now embraced him with a deluge of tears, entreated him to forgive the asperity his seeming want of all feeling had drawn from her, and frequently to write to her, and acquaint her how he went on, and send his direction for her answers; that so, at least, their father might know how he employed himself, and have the power to give him counsel.

'But how, my poor Lionel,' she added, 'how will you live abroad? How will you even travel?'

'Why as to how I shall live there, I don't know; but as well as I deserve easily: however, as to how I shall get there, look here,' taking from his pocket a handful of guineas, 'that good little Eugenia has given me every thing, even to the last half crown, that she had at Southampton, to help me forward.'

'Dear excellent, ever generous Eugenia! O that I could follow her example! but alas! I have nothing!--and worse than nothing!'

They then affectionately embraced each other, and parted.

Chapter VI

A Reckoning

What Camilla experienced at this juncture she believed inadmissible of aggravation. Even the breaking off with Edgar seemed as a new misfortune from the new force which circumstances gave to its affliction. With his sympathising aid, how might she have softened the sorrows of her father! how have broken the shock of the blow Clermont was preparing for her uncle? But now, instead of lessening their griefs, she must herself inflict upon them a heavier evil than any they had yet suffered. And how could she reveal tidings for which they were so wholly unprepared? how be even intelligible in the history, without exposing the guilty Lionel beyond all chance of pardon?

Again she went to counsel with Eugenia, who, with her usual disinterested affection, proposed taking the painful business upon herself at their return home. Camilla with tears of gratitude accepted the sisterly office, and resolved to devote the rest of her short time for Southampton to Mrs. Berlinton; who, shocked to see her evident unhappiness, hung over her with the most melting tenderness: bewailing alike the disappointment of Eugenia, and the conduct of her brother; who now, with exquisite misery, shut himself wholly up in his room.

This compassionate kindness somewhat softened her anguish; but when the engagements of Mrs. Berlinton called her away, Mrs. Mittin burst briskly into her chamber.

'Well, my dear,' cried she, 'I come with better news now than ever! only guess what it is!'

Nothing could less conduce to the tranquillity of Camilla than such a desire; her conjectures always flowed into the channels of her wishes; and she thought immediately that Mrs. Mittin had been informed of her situation, and came to her with some intelligence of Edgar.

Mrs. Mittin, after keeping her a full quarter of an hour in suspence, at last said: 'Do you know Miss Dennel's going to be married?--though she was fifteen only yesterday!--and I am invited to the wedding?'

No surprise had ever yet produced less pleasure to Camilla, who now ceased to listen, though Mrs. Mittin by no means ceased to speak, till her attention was awakened by the following sentence: 'So, as I am to go to town, to shop with her, at her own papa's desire, you can give me the money, you know, my dear, and I can pay off your Tunbridge bills for you.'

She then took out of her pockets some accounts, which, she said, she had just received; though, in fact, they had been in her possession more than a week: but till the invitation of Miss Dennel called her so pleasantly away, she had thought it prudent to keep every motive in reserve, that added importance to her stay.

Camilla, with the utmost apprehension, took the papers into her hands; they were the bills from Tunbridge, of the milliner, the shoe-maker, the haberdasher, and the glover, and amounted altogether to sixteen pounds.

The chief articles had been nearly forced upon her by Mrs. Mittin, with assurances of their cheapness, and representations of their necessity, that, joined to her entire ignorance of the enormous charges of fashion, had led her to imagine four or five guineas the utmost sum at which they could be estimated.

What now, then, was her horror! if to sixteen pounds amounted the trifles she had had at Tunbridge, what calculation must she make of articles, so infinitely more valuable, that belonged to her debts at Southampton? And to whom now could she apply? The unhappy situation of her father was no longer an only reason to forbear such a call upon him: Lionel, still under age, was flying the kingdom with debts, which, be they small as they might, would, to Mr. Tyrold's limited income, be as heavy as the more considerable ones of her cousin upon Sir Hugh; yet who besides could give her aid? Eugenia, whose yearly allowance, according to her settled future fortune, was five times that of her sisters, had given what help she had in her power, before she quitted Cleves, upon the affair of the horse; and all that remained of a considerable present made for her Southampton expedition by her uncle, who in every thing distinguished her as his successor and heiress, she had just bestowed upon Lionel, even, as he had declared, to her last half crown. Mrs. Berlinton, whose tender friendship might, in this emergence, have encouraged solicitation, was involved in debts of honour, and wanted money for herself; and to Mrs. Arlbery, her only other acquaintance rich enough to give assistance, and with whom she was intimate enough to ask it, she already owed five guineas; and how, in conscience or decency, could she address her for so much more, when she saw before her no time, no term, upon which she could fix for restitution?

In this terrible state, with no one to counsel her, and no powers of self-judgment, she felt a dread of going home, that rendered the coming day a day of horror, though to a home to which, hitherto, she had turned as the first joy of her happiness, or softest solace of any disturbance. Her filial affections were in their pristine force; her short commerce with the world had robbed them of none of their vivacity; her regard for Edgar, whom she delighted to consider as a younger Mr. Tyrold, had rather enlarged than divided them; but to return a burthen to an already burthened house, an affliction to an already afflicted parent--'No!' she broke out, aloud, 'I cannot go home!--I cannot carry calamity to my father!--He will be mild--but he will look unhappy; and I would not see his face in sorrow--sorrow of my own creating--for years of after joy!'

She threw herself down upon the bed, hid her face with the counterpane, and wept, in desperate carelessness of the presence of Mrs. Mittin, and answering nothing that she said.

In affairs of this sort, Mrs. Mittin had a quickness of apprehension, which, though but the attribute of ready cunning, was not inferior to the keenest penetration, possessed, for deeper investigations, by characters of more solid sagacity. From the fear which Camilla, in her anguish, had uttered of seeing her father, she gathered, there must be some severe restriction in money concerns; and, without troubling herself to consider what they might be, saw that to aid her at this moment would be the highest obligation; and immediately set at work a brain as fertile in worldly expedients, as it was barren of intellectual endowments, in forming a plan of present relief, which she concluded would gain her a rich and powerful friend for life.

She was not long in suggesting a proposition, which Camilla started up eagerly to hear, almost breathless with the hope of any reprieve to her terrors.

Mrs. Mittin, amongst her numerous friends, counted a Mr. Clykes, a money-lender, a man, she said, of the first credit for such matters with people of fashion in any difficulty. If Camilla, therefore, would collect her debts, this gentleman would pay them, for a handsome premium, and handsome interest, till she was able, at her own full leisure, to return the principal, with a proper present.

Camilla nearly embraced her with rapture for this scheme. The premium she would collect as she could, and the interest she would pay from her allowance, certain that when her uncle was cleared from his embarrassments, her own might be revealed without any serious distress. She put, therefore, the affair wholly into the hands of Mrs. Mittin, besought her, the next morning, to demand all her Southampton bills, to add to them those for the rent and the stores of Higden, and then to transact the business with Mr. Clykes; promising to agree to whatever premium, interest, and present, he should demand, with endless acknowledgments to herself for so great a service.

She grieved to employ a person so utterly disagreeable to Edgar; but to avert immediate evil was ever resistless to her ardent mind.

The whole of the Southampton accounts were brought her early the next morning by the active Mrs. Mittin, who now concluded, that what she had conceived to be covetousness in Camilla, was only the fear of a hard tyrant of a father, who kept her so parsimoniously, that she could allow herself no indulgence, till the death of her uncle should endow her with her own rich inheritance.

Had this arrangement not taken place before the arrival of the bills, Camilla, upon beholding them, thought she should have been driven to complete distraction. The ear-rings and necklace, silver fringes and spangles, feathers, nosegay, and shoe-roses, with the other parts of the dress, and the fine Valencienne edging, came to thirty-three pounds. The cloak also, that cheapest thing in the world, was nine guineas; and various small articles, which Mrs. Mittin had occasionally brought in, and others with which Camilla could not dispense, came to another five pounds. To this, the rent for Higden added eighteen; and the bill of stores, which had been calculated at thirty, was sent in at thirty-seven.

The whole, therefore, with the sixteen pounds from Tunbridge, amounted to one hundred and eighteen pounds nine shillings.

Struck to the very soul with the idea of what she must have endured to have presented, at such a period, so large an account, either at Cleves or at Etherington, she felt lifted into paradise by the escape of this expedient, and lost sight of every possible future difficulty, in the relief of avoiding so severe a present penalty.

By this means, also, the tradesmen would not wait; and she had been educated with so just an abhorrence of receiving the goods, and benefiting from the labours of others, without speeding them their rights and their rewards, that she felt despicable as well as miserable, when she possessed what she had not repaid.

Mrs. Mittin was now invested with full powers for the agency, which her journey to London would give her immediate means to execute. She was to meet Miss Dennel there in two days, to assist in the wedding purchases, and then to accompany that young lady to her father's house in Hampshire, whence she could visit Etherington, and finally arrange the transaction.

Camilla, again thanking, took leave of her, to consign her few remaining hours to Mrs. Berlinton, who was impatient at losing one moment of the society she began sincerely to regret she had not more uniformly preferred to all other. As sad now with cares as Camilla was with afflictions, she had robbed her situation of nearly the only good which belonged to it--an affluent power to gratify every luxury, whether of generosity or personal indulgence. Her gaming, to want of happiness, added now want of money; and Camilla, with a sigh, saw something more wretched, because far deeper and more wilful in error than herself.

They mingled their tears for their separate personal evils, with the kindest consolation that either could suggest for the other, till Camilla was told that Eugenia desired to see her in the parlour.

Mrs. Berlinton, ashamed, yet delighted to meet her again, went down at the same time. She embraced her with fondness, but ventured not to utter either apology or concern. Eugenia was serious but composed, sighed often, yet both accepted and returned her caresses.

Camilla enquired if Miss Margland expected them immediately.

'Yes,' she answered; 'but I have first a little business of my own to transact.' Then, turning to Mrs. Berlinton, and forcing a smile, 'You will be surprised,' she said, 'to hear me ask for ... your brother!... but I must see him before I can leave Southampton.'

Mrs. Berlinton hung her head: 'There is certainly,' she cried, 'no reproach he does not merit ... yet, if you knew ... the respect ... the ... the....'

Eugenia rang the bell, making a slight apology, but not listening to what Mrs. Berlinton strove to say; who, colouring and uneasy, still attempted to utter something softening to what had passed.

'Be so good,' said Eugenia, when the footman appeared, 'to tell Mr. Melmond I beg to speak with him.'

Camilla astonished, and Mrs. Berlinton silenced, waited, in an unpleasant pause, the event.

Eugenia, absorbed in thought, neither spoke to, nor looked at them, nor moved, till the door opened, and Melmond, who durst not refuse so direct a summons, though he would have preferred any punishment to obeying it, blushing, bowing, and trembling, entered the room.

She then started, half heaved, and half checked a sigh, took a folded note out of her pocket-book, and with a faint smile, said, 'I fear my desire must have been painful to you; but you see me now for the last time--I hope!--with any ill-will.'

She stopt for breath to go on; Melmond, amazed, striving vainly to articulate one word of excuse, one profession even of respect.

'Believe me, Sir,' she then continued, 'surprise was the last sensation I experienced upon a late ... transaction. My extraordinary personal defects and deformity have been some time known to me, though--I cannot tell how--I had the weakness or vanity not to think of them as I ought to have done!----But I see I give you uneasiness, and therefore I will be more concise.'

Melmond, confounded, had bowed down his head not to look at her, while Camilla and Mrs. Berlinton both wept.

'The sentiments, Sir,' she then went on, 'of my cousin have never been declared to me; but it is not very difficult to me to divine what they may be. All that is certain, is the unkindness of Fortune, which forbids her to listen, or you to plead to them. This, Sir, shall be my care'--she stopt a moment, looking paler, and wanting voice; but presently recovering, proceeded--'my happiness, let me say, to endeavour to rectify. I have much influence with my kind uncle; can I doubt, when I represent to him that I have just escaped making two worthy people wretched, he will deny aiding me to make them happy? No! the residence already intended at Cleves will still be open, though one of its parties will be changed. But as my uncle, in a manner unexampled, has bound himself, in my favour, from any future disposition of what he possesses, I have ventured, Sir, upon this paper, to obviate any apprehensions of your friends, for the unhappy time when that generous uncle can no longer act for himself.'

She then unfolded, and gave him the paper, which contained these words:

'I here solemnly engage myself, if Miss Indiana Lynmere accepts, with the consent of Sir Hugh Tyrold, the hand of Frederic Melmond, to share with them, so united, whatever fortune or estate I may be endowed with, to the end of my life, and to bequeath them the same equal portion by will after my death.

Signed. EUGENIA TYROLD.'

Unable to read, yet conceiving the purport of the writing, Melmond was at her feet. She endeavoured to raise him, and though extremely affected, said, with an air of some pleasantry, 'Shew less surprise, Sir, or I shall conclude you thought me as frightful within as without! But no! Providence is too good to make the mind necessarily deformed with the body.'

'Ah, Madam!' exclaimed Melmond, wholly overcome, 'the noblest as well as softest of human hearts I perceive to be yours----and were mine at my own disposal--it must find you resistless!'--

'No more, no more!' interrupted she, penetrated with a pleasure in these words which she durst not indulge, 'you shall hear from me soon.--Meanwhile, be Hope your motto, Friendship shall be mine.'

She was then going to hold out her hand to him; but her courage failed; she hastily embraced Mrs. Berlinton, took the arm of Camilla, and hurried out of the house, followed by the footman who had attended her.

Melmond, who had seen the motion of her hand now advancing, now withdrawn, would have given the universe to have stamped upon it his grateful reverence; but his courage was still less than her own; she seemed to him, on the sudden, transformed to a deity, benignly employed to rescue and bless him, but whose transcendent goodness he could only, at a distance, and in all humility, adore.

Mrs. Berlinton was left penetrated nearly as much as her brother, and doubtful if even the divine Indiana could render him as happy as the exalted, the incomparable Eugenia.

* * * * *

The two sisters found Miss Margland in extreme ill-humour waiting their arrival, and the whole party immediately quitted Southampton.

It not seldom occurred to Miss Margland to be cross merely as a mark of consequence; but here the displeasure was as deep with herself as with others. She had entered Southampton with a persuasion her fair pupil would make there the establishment so long the promised mede of her confinement; and Indiana herself, not knowing where to stop her sanguine and inflated hopes, imagined that the fame of her beauty would make the place where it first was exhibited the resort of all of fashion in the nation. And the opening of the scene had answered to their fullest expectations: no other name was heard but Indiana Lynmere, no other figure was admired, no other face could bear examination.

But her triumph, though splendid, was short; she soon found that the overtures of eyes were more ready than those of speech; and though one young baronet, enchanted with her beauty, immediately professed himself her lover, when he was disdained, in the full assurance of higher offers, and because a peer had addressed himself to Eugenia, she saw not that he was succeeded by any other, nor yet that he broke his own heart. Men of taste, after the first conversation, found her more admirable to look at than speak with; adventurers soon discovered that her personal charms were her only dower; the common herd were repulsed from approaching her by the repulsive manners of Miss Margland; and all evinced, that though a passion for beauty was still as fashionable as it was natural, the time was past when the altar of Hymen required no other incense to blaze upon it.

The governess, therefore, and the pupil, quitted Southampton with equal disappointment and indignation; the first foreseeing another long and yawning sojourn at Cleves; the second firmly believing herself the most unaccountably ill-used person in the creation, that one offer only had reached her, and that without repetition, though admired nearly to adoration, she literally rather than metaphorically conceived herself a demi-goddess.

One solitary offer to Eugenia, of an every way ruined young nobleman, though a blast both to the settlement and the peace of Indiana, was to herself wholly nugatory. Intent, at that period, upon dedicating for ever to Melmond her virgin heart, she was sorry, upon his account, for the application, but gave it not, upon her own, a moment's consideration. This proposition was made upon her first arrival, and was followed by no other. She was then, by the account given to the master of the ceremonies by Miss Margland, regarded as the heiress of Cleves: but, almost immediately after, the report spread by Mrs. Mittin, that Camilla was the true heiress, gained such ground amongst the shopkeepers, and thence travelled so rapidly from gossip to gossip, and house to house, that Eugenia was soon no more thought of; though a species of doubt was cast upon the whole party, from the double assertion, that kept off from Camilla, also, the fortune seekers of the place.

But another rumour got abroad, that soon entirely cleared Eugenia, not merely of lovers but acquaintances; namely, her studies with Dr. Orkborne. This was a prevailing theme of spite with Miss Margland, when the Doctor had neglected and displeased her; and a topic always at hand for her spleen, when it was angered by other circumstances not so easy of blame or of mention.

This, shortly, made Eugenia stared at still more than her peculiar appearance. The misses, in tittering, ran away from the learned lady; the beaux contemptuously sneering, rejoiced she was too ugly to take in any poor fellow to marry her. Some imagined her studies had stinted her growth; and all were convinced her education had made her such a fright.

Of the whole party, the only one who quitted Southampton in spirits was Dr. Orkborne. He was delighted to be no longer under the dominion of Miss Margland, who, though she never left him tranquil in the possession of all he valued, his leisure, and his books and papers, eternally annoyed him with reproaches upon his absence, non-attendance, and ignorance of high life; asking always, when angry, 'If any one had ever heard who was his grandfather?'

The doctor, in return, despising, like most who have it not, whatever belonged to noble birth, regarded her and her progenitors as the pest of the human race; frequently, when incensed by interruption, exclaiming, 'Where intellect is uncultivated, what is man better than a brute, or woman than an idiot?'

Nor was his return to his own room, books, and hours, under the roof of the indulgent Sir Hugh, the only relief of this removal: he knew not of the previous departure of Dr. Marchmont, and he was glad to quit a spot where he was open to a comparison which he felt to be always to his disadvantage.

So much more powerful and more prominent is character than education, that no two men could be more different than Dr. Marchmont and Dr. Orkborne, though the same university had finished their studies, and the same passion, pursuit, and success in respect to learning, had raised and had spread their names and celebrity. The first, with all his scholastic endowments, was a man of the world, and a grace to society; the second, though in erudition equally respectable, was wholly lost to the general community, and alive only with his pen and his books. They enjoyed, indeed, in common, that happy and often sole reward of learned labours, the privilege of snatching some care from time, some repining from misfortune, by seizing for themselves, and their own exclusive use, the whole monopoly of mind; but they employed it not to the same extension. The things and people of this lower sphere were studiously, by Dr. Orkborne, sunk in oblivion by the domineering prevalence of the alternate transport and toil of intellectual occupation; Dr. Marchmont, on the contrary, though his education led to the same propensities, still held his fellow creatures to be of higher consideration than their productions. Without such extravagance in the pursuit of his studies, he knew it the happy province of literary occupations, where voluntary, to absorb worldly solicitudes, and banish for a while even mental anxieties; and though the charm may be broken by every fresh intrusion of calamity, it unites again with the first retirement, and, without diminishing the feelings of social life, has a power, from time to time, to set aside their sufferings.