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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

‘Pinch them!’ exclaimed she; ‘do you ever pinch them?’

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

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

‘Yes, yes, he’s pretty well off. I always gives him h............