I shall be happier, she cried, much happier, as, with tottering steps, she hurried to the study; he will be lenient, I know;—and even if not, what displeasure can I incur so severe as the eternal apprehension of doing wrong?

But her plan, though well formed, had fixed upon an ill-timed moment for its execution. She entered the room with an agitation which rather sought than shunned remark, that some enquiry might make an opening for her confession: but Mr. Tyrold was intently reading a letter, and examining some papers, from which he raised not his eyes at her approach. She stood fearfully before him till he had done; but then, still not looking up, he leant his head upon his hand, with a countenance so disturbed, that, alarmed from her design, by the apprehension he had received some ill tidings from Lisbon, she asked, in a faint voice, if the foreign post were come in?

'I hope not!' he answered: 'I should look with pain, at this moment, upon the hand of your unhappy mother!'

Camilla, affrighted, knew not now what to conjecture; but gliding into her pocket the letter of Mrs. Mittin, stood suspended from her purpose.

'What a reception,' he presently added, 'is preparing for that noblest of women when her exile may end! That epoch, to which I have looked forward as the brightener of my every view upon earth—how is it now clouded!'

Giving her, then, the letter and papers; 'The son,' he said, 'who once I had hoped would prove the guardian of his sisters, the honour of his mother's days, the future prop of my own—See, Camilla, on how sandy a foundation mortal man builds mortal hopes!'

The letter was from a very respectable tradesman, containing a complaint that, for the three years Lionel had been at the University, he had never paid one bill, though he continually ordered new articles: and begging Mr. Tyrold would have the goodness to settle the accounts he enclosed; the young gentleman, after fixing a day for payment, having suddenly absconded without notice to any one.

'The sum, you see,' continued Mr. Tyrold, 'amounts to one hundred and seventy-one pounds; a sum, for my income, enormous. The allowance I made this cruel boy, was not only adequate to all his proper wants, and reasonable desires, but all I could afford without distressing myself, or injuring my other children: yet it has served him, I imagine, but for pocket money! The immense sums he has extorted from both his uncles, must have been swallowed up at a gaming table. Into what wretched courses has he run! These bills, large as they are, I regard but as forerunners of others; all he has received he has squandered upon his vices, and to-morrow, and the next day, and the next, I may expect an encreasing list of his debts, from his hatter, his hosier, his shoe-maker, his taylor,—and whoever he has employed.

Camilla, overwhelmed with internal shame, yet more powerful than grief itself, stood motionless. These expences appeared but like a second part of her own, with her milliner, her jeweller, and her haberdasher; which now seemed to herself not less wanton in extravagance.

Surprised by her entire silence, Mr. Tyrold looked up. Her cheeks, rather livid than pale, and the deep dismay of her countenance, extremely affected him. The kindness of his embraces relieved her by melting her into tears, though the speech which accompanied them was, to her consciousness, but reproach: 'Let not your sisterly feelings thus subdue you, my dearest Camilla. Be comforted that you have given us no affliction yourself, save what we must feel for your own undeservedly altered prospects. No unthinking imprudence, no unfeeling selfishness, has ever, for an instant, driven from your thoughts what you owe to your duty, or weakened your pleasure in every endearing filial tie. Let this cheer you, my child; and let us all try to submit calmly to our general disappointment.'