'Well,' cried Edgar, 'and what now could disturb your tranquillity?'

'The insufficiency of that heart to its own decision. I soon found her apparent predilection was simply the result of the casualty which brought me almost exclusively into her society, but unmarked by any consonance of taste, feeling, or understanding. Her inexperience had made her believe, since she preferred me to the few who surrounded her, I was the man of her choice: with equal facility I concurred in the same mistake; ... for what is so credulous as self-love? But such a regard, the child of accident, not selection, was unequal, upon the discovery of the dissimilarity of our dispositions, to the smallest sacrifice. My melancholy returned with the view of our mutual delusion; lassitude of pleasing was the precursor of discontent. Dissipation then, in the form of amusement, presented itself to her aid: retirement and books came to mine. My resource was safe, though solitary; hers was gay, but perilous. Dissipation, with its usual Proteus powers, from amusement changed its form to temptation, allured her into dangers, impeached her honour, and blighted her with disgrace. I just discerned the precipice whence she was falling, in time to avert the dreadful necessity of casting her off for ever: ... but what was our life thence forward? Cares unparticipated, griefs uncommunicated, stifled resentments, and unremitting weariness! She is now no more; and I am a lonely individual for the rest of my pilgrimage.

'Take warning, my dear young friend, by my experience. The entire possession of the heart of the woman you marry is not more essential to your first happiness, than the complete knowledge of her disposition is to your ultimate peace.'

Edgar thanked him, in deep concern to have awakened emotions which the absorption of study, and influence of literature, held generally dormant. The lesson, however, which they inculcated, he engaged to keep always present to his consideration; though, but for the strange affair of Sir Sedley Clarendel, he should feel confident that, in Camilla, there was not more of exterior attraction, than of solid excellence: and, with regard to their concordance of taste and humour, he had never seen her so gay, nor so lovely, as in scenes of active benevolence, or domestic life. She had promised to clear, hereafter, the transaction with Sir Sedley; but he could not hold back for that explanation: hurt, already, by his apparent scruples, she had openly named them as the motives of her rejection: could he, then, shew her he yet demurred, without forfeiting all hope of a future accommodation?

'Delicacy,' said Dr. Marchmont, 'though the quality the most amiable we can practise in the service of others, must not take place of common sense, and sound judgment, for ourselves. Her dismission does not discard you from her society; on the contrary, it invites your friendship....'

'Ah, Doctor! what innocence, what sweetness does that very circumstance display!'

'Learn, however, their concomitants, ere you yield to their charms: learn if their source is from a present, yet accidental preference, or from the nobler spring of elevated sentiment. The meeting you surprised with Sir Sedley, the presumption you acknowledge of his letters, and the confession made by herself that she had submitted to be duped by him.'

'O, Dr. Marchmont! what harrowing drawbacks to felicity! And how much must we rather pity than wonder at the errors of common young women, when a creature such as this is so easy to be misled!'

'You must not imagine I mean a censure upon the excellent Mr. Tyrold, when I say she is left too much to herself: the purity of his principles, and the virtue of his character, must exempt him from blame; but his life has been both too private and too tranquil, to be aware of the dangers run by Female Youth, when straying from the mother's careful wing. All that belongs to religion, and to principle, he feels, and he has taught; but the impediments they have to encounter in a commerce with mankind, he could not point out, for he does not know. Yet there is nothing more certain, than that seventeen weeks is not less able to go alone in a nursery, than seventeen years in the world.'

This suggestion but added to the bias of Edgar to take her, if possible, under his own immediate guidance.