She heard this opinion with horror. Timid shame, and the counsel of her father, united to impede her naming the internal obstacle which she felt to be insurmountable; and, while casting up, in silence, her appealing eyes to Heaven for relief, from the intricacy in which she found herself involved, she saw Lionel galloping into the park.
She flew to meet him, and he dismounted, and led his horse, to walk with her.
She flattered herself, she might now represent the mischief he was doing, and obtain from him some redress. But he was more wild and impracticable than ever. 'Well, my dear girl,' he cried, 'when are all these betterings and worsings to take place? Numps has sent for me to see poor little Greek and Latin hobble to the altar; but, 'tis a million to one, if our noble baronet does not whisk you there before her. He's a charming fellow, faith. I had a good long confab with him this morning.'
'This morning? I hope, then, you were so good, so just, as to tell him when you mean to pay the money you have borrowed?'
'My dear child, I often think you were born but yesterday, only, by some accident, you came into the world, like Minerva, grown up and ready dressed. What makes you think I mean to pay him? Have I given him any bond?'
'A bond? Is that necessary to justice and honour?'
'If I had asked the money, you are right, my dear; I ought, then, certainly, to refund. But, as it now stands, 'tis his own affair. I have nothing to do with it: except, indeed, receiving the dear little golden boys, and making merry with them.'
'O fie, Lionel, fie!'
'Why, what had I to do with it? Do you think he would care one fig if he saw me sunk to the bottom of the Red Sea? No, my dear, no; you are the little debtor; so balance your accounts for yourself, and don't cast them upon your poor neighbours, who have full enough to settle of their own.'
Camilla was thunderstruck; 'And have you been so cruel,' she cried, 'seeing the matter in such a light, to place me in such a predicament?'