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Another affair, immediately after, superseded them, for the present, by more urgent difficulties.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