, the only way to a lasting accommodation was to alarm his security, by asserting her own independence.

Her difficulty, however, was still considerable as to the means. The severe punishment she had received, and the self blame and penitence she had incurred, from her experiment with Sir Sedley Clarendel, all rendered, too, abortive, by Edgar's contempt of the object, determined her to suffer no hopes, no feelings of her own, to engross her ever more from weighing those of another. The end, therefore, of her deliberation was to shew general gaiety, without appropriate favour, and to renew solicitude on his part by a displayed ease of mind on her own.

Elated with this idea, she determined upon every possible public exhibition by which she could execute it to the best advantage. Mrs. Berlinton had but to appear, to secure the most fashionable persons at Southampton for her parties, and soon renewed the same course of life she had lived at Tunbridge, of seeing company either at home or abroad every day, except when some accidental plan offered a scheme of more novelty.

Upon all these occasions, young Westwyn, though wholly unsought, and even unthought of by Camilla, was instinctively and incautiously the most alert to second her plan; he was her first partner when she danced, her constant attendant when she walked, and always in wait to converse with her when she was seated; while, not purposing to engage him, she perceived not his fast growing regard, and intending to be open to all alike, observed not the thwarting effect to her design of this peculiar assiduity.

By old Mr. Westwyn this intercourse was yet more urgently forwarded. Bewitched with Camilla, he carried his son to her wherever she appeared, and said aloud to everybody but herself: 'If the boy and girl like one another, they shall have one another; and I won't inquire what she's worth; for she thinks so well of my son, that I'd rather he'd have her than an empress. Money goes but a little way to make people happy; and true love's not a thing to be got every day; so if she has a mind to my Hal, and Hal has a mind to her, why, if they have not enough, he must work hard and get more. I don't like to cross young people. Better let a man labour with his hands, than fret away his spirit. Neither a boy nor a girl are good for much when they've got their hearts broke.