Camilla; or, A Picture of Youth. Burney Fanny

exemption from actual blemish could only be a negative recommendation: he should very soon, he added, see a lady upon whose judgment he could rely, and who would frankly satisfy him with respect to some other particulars, which, he owned, he considered as essential to be known, before any intimacy should be formed.

      Wishing to comply with his request, yet impatient to leave the house, Camilla stood suspended till the chaise was announced.

      'I think,' cried she, with a look and tone of irresolution, 'my going this once can draw on no ill consequence?'

      Edgar only dropt his eyes.

      'You are not of that opinion?'

      'I have a very particular engagement this morning,' he replied; 'but I will readily give it up, and ride off instantly to make my application to this lady, if it is possible you can defer only till tomorrow your visit. Will you suffer me to ask such a delay? It will greatly oblige me.'

      'Why, then—I will defer it till to-morrow—or till to-morrow week!' cried she, wholly vanquished; 'I insist, therefore, that you do not postpone your business.'

      She then desired the servant, who was taking away the breakfast equipage, to order the chaise to be put up.

      Edgar, subdued in his turn, caught her hand: but, instantly, recollecting himself, hastily let it go; and, throwing up the window sash, abruptly exclaimed: 'I never saw such fine weather:—I hope it will not rain!'

      He then rapidly wished them all good morning, and mounted his horse.

      Miss Margland, who, sideling towards the window, on pretence of examining a print, had heard and seen all that had passed, was almost overpowered with rage, by the conviction she received that her apprehensions were not groundless. She feared losing all weight both with the baronet and with Indiana, if she made this acknowledgment, and retreated, confounded, to her own room, to consider what path to pursue at so dangerous a crisis; wearing a scowl upon her face, that was always an indication she would not be followed.

      Camilla also went to her chamber, in a perturbation at once pleasing and painful. She was sorry to have missed her excursion, but she was happy to have obliged Edgar; she was delighted he could take such interest in her conduct and affairs, yet dreaded, more than ever, a private conversation with Indiana;—Indiana, who, every moment, appeared to her less and less calculated to bestow felicity upon Edgar Mandlebert.

      She seated herself at a window, and soon, through the trees, perceived him galloping away. 'Too—too amiable Edgar!' she cried, earnestly looking after him, with her hands clasped, and tears starting into her eyes.

      Frightened at her own tenderness, she rose, shut the window, and walked to another end of the apartment.

      She took up a book; but she could not read: 'Too—too amiable Edgar!' again escaped her. She went to her piano-forte; she could not play: 'Too—too amiable Edgar!' broke forth in defiance of all struggle.

      Alarmed and ashamed, even to herself, she resolved to dissipate her ideas by a long walk; and not to come out of the park, till the first dinner-bell summoned her to dress.

CHAPTER XV

       Table of Contents

Two Sides of a Question

       Table of Contents

      The intention of Edgar had been to ride to Mrs. Needham, the lady of whom he meant to ask the information to which he had alluded; but a charm too potent for resistance demanded his immediate liberation from the promise to Dr. Marchmont, which bound him to proceed no further till they had again conversed together.

      He galloped, therefore, to the parsonage-house of Cleves, and entering the study of the Doctor, and taking him by the hand, with the most animated gesture; 'My dear and honoured friend,' he cried, 'I come to you now without hesitation, and free from every painful embarrassment of lurking irresolution! I come to you decided, and upon grounds which cannot offend you, though the decision anticipates your counsel. I come to you, in fine, my dear Doctor, my good and kind friend, to confess that yesterday you saw right, with regard to the situation of my mind, and that, to-day, I have only your felicitations to beg, upon my confirmed, my irrevocable choice!'

      Dr. Marchmont embraced him: 'May you then,' he cried, 'be as happy, my dear young friend, as you deserve! I can wish you nothing higher.'

      'Last night,' continued Edgar, 'I felt all doubt die away: captivating as I have ever thought her, so soft, so gentle, so touchingly sweet, as last night, I had never yet beheld her; you witnessed it, my dear Doctor? you saw her with the baby in her arms? how beautiful, how endearing a sight!'

      The Doctor looked assentingly, but did not speak.

      'Yet even last night was short of the feelings she excited this morning. My dear friend! she was upon the point of making an excursion from which she had promised herself peculiar pleasure, and to see a lady for whom she had conceived the warmest admiration—I begged her to postpone—perhaps relinquish entirely the visit—she had obtained leave from Sir Hugh—the carriage was at the door—would you, could you believe such sweetness with such vivacity? she complied with my request, and complied with a grace that has rivetted her—I own it—that has rivetted her to my soul!'

      Doctor Marchmont smiled, but rather pensively than rejoicingly; and Edgar, receiving no answer, walked for some time about the room, silently enjoying his own thoughts.

      Returning then to the Doctor, 'My dear friend,' he cried, 'I understood you wished to speak with me?'

      'Yes—but I thought you disengaged.'

      'So, except mentally, I am still.'

      'Does she not yet know her conquest?'

      'She does not even guess it.'

      Dr. Marchmont now rising, with much energy said: 'Hear me then, my dear and most valued young friend; forbear to declare yourself, make no overtures to her relations, raise no expectations even in her own breast, and let not rumour surmise your passion to the world, till her heart is better known to you.'

      Edgar, starting and amazed, with great emotion exclaimed: 'What do you mean, my good Doctor? do you suspect any prior engagement? any fatal prepossession?'—

      'I suspect nothing. I do not know her. I mean not, therefore, the propensities alone, but the worth, also, of her heart; deception is easy, and I must not see you thrown away.'

      'Let me, then, be her guarantee!' cried Edgar, with firmness; 'for I know her well! I have known her from her childhood, and cannot be deceived. I fear nothing—except my own powers of engaging her regard. I can trace to a certainty, even from my boyish remarks, her fair, open, artless, and disinterested character.'

      He then gave a recital of the nobleness of her sentiments and conduct when only nine years old; contrasting the relation with the sullen and ungenerous behaviour of Indiana at the same age.

      Dr. Marchmont listened to the account with attention and pleasure, but not with an air of that full conviction which Edgar expected. 'All this,' he said, 'is highly prophetic of good, and confirms me in the opinion I expressed last night, that every possible happiness promises to be yours.'

      'Yet, still,' said Edgar, a little chagrined, 'there seems some drawback to your entire approbation?'

      'To your choice I have none.'

      'You perplex me, Doctor! I know not to what you object, what you would intimate, nor what propose?'

      'All I have to suggest may be comprised in two points: First, That you will refuse confirmation even to your own intentions, till you have positively ascertained her actual possession of those virtues with which she appears to be endowed: