drawbacks to felicity! And how much must we rather pity than wonder at the errors of common young women, when a creature such as this is so easy to be misled!'

'You must not imagine I mean a censure upon the excellent Mr. Tyrold, when I say she is left too much to herself: the purity of his principles, and the virtue of his character, must exempt him from blame; but his life has been both too private and too tranquil, to be aware of the dangers run by Female Youth, when straying from the mother's careful wing. All that belongs to religion, and to principle, he feels, and he has taught; but the impediments they have to encounter in a commerce with mankind, he could not point out, for he does not know. Yet there is nothing more certain, than that seventeen weeks is not less able to go alone in a nursery, than seventeen years in the world.'

This suggestion but added to the bias of Edgar to take her, if possible, under his own immediate guidance.

'Know, first,' cried the Doctor, 'if to your guidance she will give way; know if the affair with Sir Sedley has exculpations which render it single and adventitious, or if there hang upon it a lightness of character that may invest caprice, chance, or fickleness, with powers of involving such another entanglement.'

CHAPTER VII

How to treat a Defamer

As the lodgings taken by Miss Margland could not be ready till the afternoon, Camilla remained with her sister; a sojourn which, while it consoled her with the society, and gratified her by the approbation of Eugenia, had yet another allurement; it detained her under the same roof with Edgar; and his manner of listening to her rejection, and his undisguised suffering before they were parted, led her to expect he might yet demand a conference before she quitted the hotel.

In about an hour, as unpleasantly as unceremoniously, they were broken in upon by Mrs. Mittin.

'How monstrous lucky, my dear,' cried she, to Camilla, 'that I should find you, and your little sister, for I suppose this is she, together! I went into your dining-room to ask for you, and there I met those other two ladies; and I've made acquaintance with 'em, I assure you, already; for I told them I was on a visit at the Honourable Mrs. Berlinton's. So I've had the opportunity to recommend some shops to 'em, and I