eminent, of course, were her first objects, but the same aim descended to the lowest. She would work, read, go of errands, or cook a dinner; be a parasite, a spy, an attendant, a drudge; keep a secret, or spread a report; incite a quarrel, or coax contending parties into peace; invent any expedient, and execute any scheme ... all with the pretext to oblige others, but all, in fact, for simple egotism; as prevalent in her mind as in that of the more highly ambitious, though meaner and less dangerous.

Camilla was much relieved when she found this officious person was no longer retained solely upon her account; but still she could neither obtain her bills, no answers ever arriving, nor the money for her twenty pound note, Mrs. Mittin always evading to deliver it, and asserting she was sure somebody would come in the stage the next day for the payment she had promised; and when Camilla wanted cash for any of the very few articles she now allowed herself to think indispensable, instead of restoring it into her hands, she flew out herself to purchase the goods that were required, and always brought them home with assurances they were cheaper than the shopkeepers would let her have them for herself.

Camilla resisted all incitements to new dress and new ornaments, with a fortitude which must not be judged by the aged, nor the retired, who weighing only the frivolity of what she withstood, are not qualified to appreciate the merit of this sort of resignation; the young, the gay, the new in life, who know that, amongst minor calamities, none are more alarming to the juvenile breast than the fear of not appearing initiated in the reigning modes, can alone do justice to the present philosophy of Camilla, in seeing that all she wore, by the quick changes of fashion, seemed already out of date; in refusing to look at the perpetual diversity of apparel daily brought, by various dress modellers, for the approbation of Mrs. Berlinton, and in seeing that lady always newly, brightly, and in a distinguished manner attired, yet appearing by her side in exactly the same array that she had constantly worn at Tunbridge. Nor was Camilla indifferent to this contrast; but she submitted to it as the duty of her present involved situation, which exacted from her every privation, in preference to bestowing upon any new expence the only sum she could command towards clearing what was past.

But, after a very short time, the little wardrobe exhibited a worse quality than that of not keeping pace