 to attain!'

'You are right!' cried she, blushing in her unwilling conviction: 'I know not how he could delude me to believe our fates resembled. Certainly nothing can be less similar.'

Camilla was happy in this victory; but the following day, Bellamy, at the same hour was announced, and in the same manner was admitted; Camilla flying, and Mrs. Berlinton protesting she should attack his mistaken comparison with severity.

Severity, however, was a quality with which she was unacquainted; Camilla, anxious in every way, hastened to her when he was gone, but found her dissolved in tender tears, shed, she declared, in regret of the uneasiness she had given him, for he had now made her fully sensible his destiny alone was to blame.

The understanding of Camilla was highly superior to being duped by such flimsy sophistry, which she heard with added detestation of the character of Bellamy; yet perceived that no remonstrance could prevent his admittance, and that every interview regularly destroyed the effect of every exhortation.

In this melancholy period, the sole satisfaction she received was through a letter written by Lionel from Ostend, in which he told her that the dread of imprisonment, or want, in a foreign country, made him lead a life so parsimonious, so totally deprived of all pleasure and all comfort, that he was almost consumed with regret for the wilfulness with which he had thrown away his innumerable advantages; and so much struck with the retrospection of the wanton follies and vices which had involved him in such dishonour and ruin, that he began now to think he had rather been mad than wicked;—so unmeaning, unreflecting, and unprovoked, as well as worthless, had been the course he had pursued.

Camilla sent this letter immediately to her Father, who remitted to Lionel such a sum as must obviate distress, with such intimation for the future as he hoped would best encourage more solid reformation.

Thus passed the time, improperly, or unhappily to all, till the third period fixed for the return to the country elapsed: and Camilla, finding the whole view of her journey abortive, saw the accumulated yet useless suffering involved through her ill-judged procrastination. Yet, as Eugenia still did not despair, even her confession was unwritten; and as Miss Margland and Indiana granted her request of going round by Belfont, which she had previously arranged from an ardent desire to embrace her loved sister, she still dwelt on a last hope from that interview.

CHAPTER IV

Hints upon National Prejudice

With mingled disquietude and distaste, Melmond saw the reluctance of Indiana
