Camilla, surprised into recollection, endeavoured to become calmer. 'You, indeed,' continued the temperate Eugenia, 'if so situated, would not so have behaved; you would not have been so unjust; and you could not have been so weak; but still, if you had received, however causelessly, any alarm for the affection of the man you meant to marry, and that man were as amiable as Edgar, you would have been equally disturbed.' Camilla, convinced, yet shocked, felt the flutter of her heart give a thousand hues to her face, and walking to the window, leaned far out to gasp for breath. 'Weigh the request more coolly, and you cannot refuse a short compliance. I am sure you would not make Indiana unhappy.' 'O, no! not for the world!' cried she, struggling to seem more reasonable than she felt. 'Yet how can she be otherwise, if she imagines you have more of the notice and esteem of Edgar than herself?' Camilla now had not a word to say; the subject dropt; she took up a book, and by earnest internal remonstrances, commanded herself to appear at tea-time with tolerable serenity. The evening was passed in spiritless conversation, or in listening to the piano-forte, upon which Indiana, with the utmost difficulty, played some very easy lessons. At night, the following answer arrived from Dr. Marchmont: _To_ Edgar Mandlebert, _Esq._ _Parsonage House, Cleves, Friday Night._ MY DEAR FRIEND, I must be thankful, in a moment of such enthusiasm, that you can pay the attention of even recollecting those evils with which my zeal only has, you think, encompassed you. I cannot insist upon the practice of caution which you deem unfounded; but as you wait my answer, I will once more open upon my sentiments, and communicate my wishes. It is now only I can speak them; the instant you have informed the young lady of your own, silences them for ever. Your honour and her happiness become then entangled in each other, and I know not which I would least willingly assail. What in all men is base, would to you, I believe, be impossible--to trifle with such favour as may be the growth of your own undisguised partiality. Your present vehemence to ascertain the permanent possession of one you conceive formed for your felicity, obscures, to your now absorbed faculties, the thousand nameless, but tenacious, delicacies annexed by your species of character to your powers of enjoyment. In two words, then, let me tell you, what, in a short time, you will daily tell yourself: you cannot be happy if not exclusively loved; for you cannot excite, you cannot bestow happiness.