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

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

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

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

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

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

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

She fetched him one.

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

She wrote—Dear Sir.

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

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

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

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

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

'To whom is it to be addressed?'

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

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

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

'For myself!'

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

'Pho, pho!'

'Major Cerwood?'

'No, never!'

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

'Well,—let us see.'

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

'Blazed abroad!'

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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