'Dear, generous, noble girl! no! I won't take from you a shilling! keep it all—nobody will spend it so well;—and I can't give you back your beauty; so keep it, my dear, all, for my oath's sake, when I am gone; and don't make me die under a prevaricating; which would be but a grievous thing for a person to do; unless he was but a bad believer: which, God help us! there are enough, without my helping to make more.'
Mr. Tyrold now again remonstrated, motioning to the weeping group to be gone.
'Ah! my dear Brother!' said Sir Hugh, 'you are the only right person that ought to have had it all, if it had not been for my poor weak brain, that made me always be looking askew instead of strait forward. And indeed I always meant you to have had it for your life, till the smallpox put all things out of my head. However, I hope you won't object to preach my funeral sermon, for all my bad faults, for nobody else will speak of me so kindly; which may serve as a better lesson for those I leave behind.'
Tears flowed fast down the cheeks of Mr. Tyrold, as he uttered whatever he could suggest most tenderly soothing to his Brother: and the young mourners, not daring to resist, were all gliding away, except Camilla, whose hand was fast grasped in that of her Uncle.
'Ah, my Camilla,' cried he, as she would gently have withdrawn it, 'how shall I part with my little dear darling? this is the worst twitch to me of all, with all my contentedness! And the more because I know you love your poor old Uncle, just as well as if he had left you all he was worth, though you won't get one penny by his death!'
'O my dear, dearest Uncle—' exclaimed Camilla, in a passionate flood of tears; when Mr. Tyrold, assuring them both the consequences might be fatal, tore her away from the bed and the room.