'And how will you help it?'
'O, because I'm determined I won't. I think it's very hard if I may'nt have my own way when I'm married.'
''Twill at least be very singular!' answered Mrs. Arlbery.
Camilla now returned to her party, having first conducted her new friend towards a door in the park where her carriage was waiting.
'At length, my dear,' said Mrs. Arlbery, 'your fair mysterious has, I suppose, avowed herself?'
'I made no inquiry,' answered she, painfully looking down.
'I can tell you who she is, then, myself,' said Miss Dennel; 'she is Mrs. Berlinton, and she's come out of Wales, and she's married, and she's eighteen.'
'Married!' repeated Camilla, blushing from internal surprise at the conversations she had held with her.
'Yes; your fair Incognita is neither more nor less,' said Mrs. Arlbery, 'than the honourable Mrs. Berlinton, wife to Lord Berlinton's brother, and, next only to Lady Alithea Selmore, the first toast, and the reigning cry of the Wells for this season.'
Camilla, who had seen and considered her in almost every other point of view, heard this with less of pleasure than astonishment. When a further investigation brought forth from Lord O'Lerney that her maiden name was Melmond, Mrs. Arlbery exclaimed: 'O, then, I cease to play the idiot, and wonder! I know the Melmonds well. They are all half crazy, romantic, love-lorn, studious, and sentimental. One of them was in Hampshire this summer, but so immensely "melancholy and gentleman-like[2]," that I never took him into my society.'