'I hope you are not forming any connexion unknown to my father?'
'Ha, ha, ha!' cried Lionel laughing loud: 'Why thou hast lived in that old parsonage-house till thou art almost too young to be rocked in a cradle.'
'If you are entering into any engagement,' said she, still more gravely, 'that my father must not know, and that my mother would so bitterly condemn,—why am I to be trusted with it?'
'You understand nothing of these things, child. 'Tis the very nature of a father to be an hunks, and of a mother to be a bore.'
'O Lionel! such a father!—such a mother!—'
'As to their being perfectly good, and all that, I know it very well. And I am very sorry for it. A good father is a very serious misfortune to a poor lad like me, as the world runs; it causes one such confounded gripes of the conscience for every little awkward thing one does! A bad father would be the joy of my life; 'twould be all fair play there; the more he was choused the better.'
'But this pretty girl, Lionel!—Are you serious? Are you really engaging yourself? And is she so poor? Is she so much distressed, that you require these immense and frequent sums for her?'
Lionel laughed again, and rubbed his hands; but after a short silence assumed a more steady countenance, and said, 'Don't ask me any thing about her. It is not fit you should be so curious. And don't give a hint of the matter to a soul. Mind that! But as to the money, I must have it. And directly: I shall be blown to the deuce else.'
'Lionel!' cried Camilla, shrinking, 'you make me tremble! you cannot surely be so wicked ... so unprincipled.... No! your connexions are never worse than imprudent!—you would not else be so unkind, so injurious as to place in me such a confidence!'
The whole face of Lionel now flashed with shame, and he walked about the room, muttering: ''Tis true, I ought not to have done it.' And soon after, with still greater concern, he exclaimed: 'If this appears to you in such a heinous light, what will my father think of it? And how can I bear to let it be known to my mother?'