Camilla obeyed not the call without many secret sensations of distress and difficulty, but which, mingled with the more obvious ones of modesty and embarrassment, all passed for a flutter of spirits that appeared natural to the occasion.
Mr. Tyrold could only silently embrace her: knowing what she had suffered, and judging thence the excess of her present satisfaction, he would not add to her confusion by any information of his consciousness; but the softness with which he held her to his bosom spoke, beyond all words, his heartfelt sympathy in her happiness.
Camilla had no power to draw herself from his arms; but Edgar hovered round her, and Sir Hugh repeatedly and impatiently demanded to have his turn. Mr. Tyrold, gently disengaging himself from her embraces, gave one of her hands to Edgar, who, with grateful joy, pressed it to his lips. 'My children!' he then said, laying a hand upon the shoulder of each, 'what a sight is this to me! how precious a union! what will it be to your excellent mother! So long and so decidedly it has been our favourite earthly wish, that, were she but restored to me ... to her country and to her family ... I might, perhaps, require some new evil to prevent my forgetting where ... and what I am!'
'My dear brother, I say! my dear niece! My dear Mr. young Edgar!' cried Sir Hugh, in the highest good humour, though with nearly exhausted patience, 'won't you let me put in a word? nor so much as give you my blessing? though I can hardly hold life and soul together for the sake of my joy!'
Camilla cast herself into his arms, he kissed her most fondly, saying: 'Don't forget your poor old uncle, my dear little girl, for the account of this young Mr. Edgar, because, good as he is, he has taken to you but a short time in comparison with me.'
'No,' said Edgar, still tenaciously retaining the hand parentally bestowed upon him; 'no, dear Sir Hugh, I wish not to rob you of your darling. I wish but to be admitted myself into this dear and respected family, and to have Etherington, Cleves, and Beech Park, considered as our alternate and common habitations.'
'You are the very best young man in the whole wide world!' cried Sir Hugh, almost sobbing with ecstasy; 'for you have hit upon just the very thing I was thinking of in my own private mind! What a mercy it is our not accepting that young Captain, who would have run away with her to I don't know where, instead of being married to the very nearest estate in the county, that will always be living with us!'
The rest of the family now, obedient to the direction of Jacob, who had intimated that something extraordinary was going forward, entered the room.
'Come in, come in,' cried Sir Hugh, 'and hear the good news; for we have just been upon the very point of losing the best opportunity that ever we had in our lives of all living together; which, I hope, we shall now do, without any more strangers coming upon us with their company, being a thing we don't desire.'
'But what's the good news, uncle?' said Indiana; 'is it only about our living together?'