While, in the bosom of her faithful sister, Camilla reposed her feelings and her fears, alternately rejoicing and trembling in the temerity of the resolution she had exerted; Edgar sought his not less faithful, nor honourable, but far more worldly friend, Dr. Marchmont.

He narrated, with extreme emotion, the scene he had just had with Camilla; asserting her possession of every species of excellence from the nobleness of her rejection, and abhorring himself for having given her a moment's doubt of his fullest esteem. Not a solicitude, he declared, now remained with him, but how to appease her displeasure, satisfy her dignity, and recover her favour.

'Softly, softly!' said the Doctor; 'measure your steps more temperately, ere you run with such velocity. If this refusal is the result of an offended sensibility, you cannot exert yourself too warmly in its consolation; even if it is from pride, it has a just claim to your concessions, since she thinks you have injured it; yet pause before you act, may it not be merely from a confidence of power that loves to tyrannize over its slaves, by playing with their chains? or a lurking spirit of coquetry, that desires to regain the liberty of trifling with some new Sir Sedley Clarendel? or, perhaps, with Sir Sedley himself?'

'Dr. Marchmont! how wretchedly ill you think of women!'

'I think of them as they are! I think of them as I have found them. They are artful, though feeble; they are shallow, yet subtle.'

'You have been unfortunate in your connexions?'

'Yet who had better prospects? with energies as warm, with hopes as alive as your own, twice have I conducted to the altar two beings I thought framed for my peculiar felicity; but my peace, my happiness, and my honour, have been torn up by the root, exactly where I thought I had planted them for my whole temporal existence. This heart, which to you appears hard and suspicious, has been the dupe of its susceptibilities; first, in a creature of its own choice, next, where it believed itself chosen. That first, Mandlebert, had you seen her, you would have thought, as I thought her myself ... an angel! She was another Camilla.'

'Another Camilla!'

'Grace, sweetness, and beauty vied in her for pre-eminence. Yes, another Camilla! though I see your incredulity; I see you think my comparison almost profane; and that grace, sweetness, and beauty, waited the birth of Camilla to be made known to the world. Such, however, she was, and I saw and loved at once. I knew her character fair, I precipitately made my addresses, and concluded myself beloved in return ... because I was accepted!'

Edgar shrunk back, and cast down his eyes.

'Nor was it till the moment ... heart-breaking yet to my recollection!... of her sudden death, that I knew the lifeless, soulless, inanimate frame was all she had bestowed upon me. In the private drawer of her bureau, I then found a pocketbook. In the first leaf, I saw a gentleman's name; ... I turned over, and saw it again; I looked further, and still it met my view; I opened by chance, ... but nothing else appeared: ... there it was still, traced in every hand, charactered in every form, shape, and manner, the wayward, wistful eye could delight to fashion, for varying, yet beholding it without end: while, over the intermediate spaces, verses, quotations, short but affecting sentences, were every where scattered, bewailing the misery of disappointed hope, and unrequited love; of a heartless hand devoted at the altar; of vows enchaining liberty, not sanctifying affection! I then ... alas, too late! dived deeper, with, then, useless investigation, ... and discovered an early passion, never erased from her mind; ... discovered ... that I had never made her happy! that she was merely enduring, suffering me ... while my whole confiding soul was undividedly hers!...'

Edgar shuddered at this picture; 'But why, then,' he cried, 'since she seemed amiable as well as fair, why did she accept you?'

'Ask half the married women in the nation how they became wives: they will tell you their friends urged them; ... that they had no other establishment in view; ... that nothing is so uncertain as the repetition of matrimonial powers in women; ... and that those who cannot solicit what they wish, must accommodate themselves to what offers. This first adventure, however, is now no longer useful to you, though upon its hard remembrance was founded my former caution: but I am even myself satisfied, at present, that the earliest partiality of Camilla has been yours; what now you have to weigh, is the strength or inadequacy of her character, for guiding that partiality to your mutual happiness. My second melancholy history will best illustrate this difficulty. You may easily believe, the last of my intentions was any further essay in a lottery I had found so inauspicious; but, while cold even to apathy, it was my inevitable chance to fall in the way of a pleasing and innocent young creature, who gave me, unsought and unwished-for, her heart. The boon, nevertheless, soon caught my own: for what is so alluring as the voluntary affection of a virtuous woman?'

'Well,' cried Edgar, 'and what now could disturb your tranquillity?'

'The insufficiency of that heart to its own decision. I soon found her apparent predilection was simply the result of the casualty which brought me almost exclusively into her society, but unmarked by any consonance of taste, feeling, or understanding. Her inexperience had made her believe, since she preferred me to the few who surrounded her, I was the man of her choice: with equal facility I concurred in the same mistake; ... for what is so credulous as self-love? But such a regard, the child of accident, not selection, was unequal, upon the discovery of the dissimilarity of our dispositions, to the smallest sacrifice. My melancholy returned with the view of our mutual delusion; lassitude of pleasing was the precursor of discontent. Dissipation then, in the form of amusement, presented itself to her aid: retirement and books came to mine. My resource was safe, though solitary; hers was gay, but perilous. Dissipation, with its usual Proteus powers, from amusement changed its form to temptation, allured her into dangers, impeached her honour, and blighted her with disgrace. I just discerned the precipice whence she was falling, in time to avert the dreadful necessity of casting her off for ever: ... but what was our life thence forward? Cares unparticipated, griefs uncommunicated, stifled resentments, and unremitting weariness! She is now no more; and I am a lonely individual for the rest of my pilgrimage.

'Take warning, my dear young friend, by my experience. The entire possession of the heart of the woman you marry is not more essential to your first happiness, than the complete knowledge of her disposition is to your ultimate peace.'

Edgar thanked him, in deep concern to have awakened emotions which the absorption of study, and influence of literature, held generally dormant. The lesson, however, which they inculcated, he engaged to keep always present to his consideration; though, but for the strange affair of Sir Sedley Clarendel, he should feel confident that, in Camilla, there was not more of exterior attraction, than of solid excellence: and, with regard to their concordance of taste and humour, he had never seen her so gay, nor so lovely, as in scenes of active benevolence, or domestic life. She had promised to clear, hereafter, the transaction with Sir Sedley; but he could not hold back for that explanation: hurt, already, by his apparent scruples, she had openly named them as the motives of her rejection: could he, then, shew her he yet demurred, without forfeiting all hope of a future accommodation?

'Delicacy,' said Dr. Marchmont, 'though the quality the most amiable we can practise in the service of others, must not take place of common sense, and sound judgment, for ourselves. Her dismission does not discard you from her society; on the contrary, it invites your friendship....'

'Ah, Doctor! what innocence, what sweetness does that very circumstance display!'

'Learn, however, their concomitants, ere you yield to their charms: learn if their source is from a present, yet accidental preference, or from the nobler spring of elevated sentiment. The meeting you surprised with Sir Sedley, the presumption you acknowledge of his letters, and the confession made by herself that she had submitted to be duped by him.'

'O, Dr. Marchmont! what harrowing drawbacks to felicity! And how much must we rather pity than wonder at the errors of common young women, when a creature such as this is so easy to be misled!'

'You must not imagine I mean a censure upon the excellent Mr. Tyrold, when I say she is left too much to herself: the purity of his principles, and the virtue of his character, must exempt him from blame; but his life has been both too private and too tranquil, to be aware of the dangers run by Female Youth, when straying from the mother's careful wing. All that belongs to religion, and to principle, he feels, and he has taught; but the impediments they have to encounter in a commerce with mankind, he could not point out, for he does not know. Yet there is nothing more certain, than that seventeen weeks is not less able to go alone in a nursery, than seventeen years in the world.'

This suggestion but added to the bias of Edgar to take her, if possible, under his own immediate guidance.

'Know, first,' cried the Doctor, 'if to your guidance she will give way; know if the affair with Sir Sedley has exculpations which render it single and adventitious, or if there hang upon it a lightness of character that may invest caprice, chance, or fickleness, with powers of involving such another entanglement.'