 parties! These men that now so flock around us; would find some other loadstone. I know them pretty well, dear creatures!...'

Though shocked to appear thus destitute, Camilla was somewhat relieved to have no debt but with Mrs. Arlbery; for she resolved to pay Sir Sedley and the milliner the next day, and to settle with Mrs. Arlbery upon her return to Etherington.

CHAPTER X

Strictures upon the Ton

The next day was appointed for the master of the ceremonies' ball; which proved a general rendezvous of all parties, and almost all classes of company.

Mrs. Mittin, in a morning visit to Camilla, found out that she had only the same cap for this occasion that she had worn upon every other; and, assuring her it was grown so old-fashioned, that not a lady's maid in Tunbridge would now be seen in it, she offered to pin her up a turban, which should come to next to nothing, yet should be the prettiest, and simplest, and cheapest thing that ever was seen.

Camilla, though a stranger to vanity, and without any natural turn to extravagance, was neither of an age, nor a philosophy, to be unmoved by the apprehension of being exposed to ridicule from her dress: she thankfully, therefore, accepted the proposal; and Mrs. Mittin, taking a guinea, said, she would pay Mrs. Tillden for the hat, at the same time that she bought a new handkerchief for the turban.

When she came back, however, she had only laid out a few shillings at another shop, for some articles, so cheap, she said it would have been a shame not to buy them; but without paying the bill, Mrs. Tillden having desired it might not be discharged till the young lady was leaving the Wells.

As the turban was made up from a pattern of one prepared for Mrs. Berlinton, Camilla had every reason to be satisfied of its elegance. Nor did Mrs. Mittin involve her in much distress how her own trouble might be recompensed; the cap she found unfit for Camilla, she could contrive, she said, to alter for herself; and as a friend had given her a ticket for the ball, it would be mighty convenient to her, as she had nothing of the kind ready.

Far different were the sensations with which Edgar and Camilla saw each other this night, from those with which, so lately they had met in the same apartment. Edgar thought her degenerating into the character of a coquette, and Camilla, in his intended
