 he had only done it from the first.

Edgar, though easily through all this he saw the malignant yet shallow offices of Miss Margland, found himself, with infinite vexation, compelled to declare off equally from both the charges; conscious, that till the very moment of his proposals, he must appear to have no preference nor designs. He spoke, therefore, with the utmost respect of the young ladies, but again said it was uncertain if he should not travel before he formed any establishment.

The business thus explicitly decided, nothing more could be done: but Miss Margland was somewhat appeased, when she heard that her pupil was not so disgracefully to be supplanted.

Indiana herself, to whom Edgar had never seemed agreeable, soon forgot she had ever thought of him; and elated by the acquisition of a new lover, doubted not, but, in a short time, the publication of her liberty would prove slavery to all mankind.

Early the next morning, the carriage of Sir Hugh arrived at the rectory for Camilla. She never refused an invitation from her uncle, but she felt so little equal to passing a whole day in the presence of Miss Margland, after the unaccountable, yet alarming relation she had gathered from Lionel, that she entreated him to accompany her, and to manage that she should return with him as soon as the horses were fed and rested.

Lionel, ever good humoured, and ready to oblige, willingly complied; but demanded that she should go with him, in their way back, to see a new house which he wanted to examine.

Sir Hugh received her with his usual affection, Indiana with indifference, and Miss Margland with a malicious smile: but Eugenia, soon taking her aside, disclosed to her that Edgar, the day before, had publicly and openly disclaimed any views upon Indiana, and had declared himself without any passion whatever, and free from all inclination or intention but to travel.

The blush of pleasure, with which Camilla heard the first sentence of this speech, became the tingle of shame at the second, and whitened into surprise and sorrow at the last.

Eugenia, though she saw some disturbance, understood not these changes. Early absorbed in the study of literature and languages, under the direction of a preceptor who had never mingled with the world, her capacity had been occupied in constant work for her memory; but her judgment and penetration had been wholly unexercised. Like her uncle, she concluded every body, and every thing to be precisely what they appeared; and though, in that given point of view, she had keener intellects
