Louisa stopped short and coloured. The word keepsake recalled the box
to her mind, and all the train of ideas which the Flora had banished.
"But," said she, looking up wishfully in Cecilia's face, and holding the
Flora doubtfully, "did you----"

Leonora, who was just quitting the room, turned her head back, and gave
Louisa a look, which silenced her.

Cecilia was so infatuated with her vanity, that she neither perceived
Leonora's sign, nor Louisa's confusion, but continued showing off her
present, by placing it in various situations, till at length she put it
into the case, and laying it down with an affected carelessness upon the
bed, "I must go now, Louisa. Good bye," said she, running up and kissing
her; "but I'll come again presently;" then clapping the door after her,
she went.

But as soon as the fermentation of her spirits subsided, the sense of
shame, which had been scarcely felt when mixed with so many other
sensations, rose uppermost in her mind. "What?" said she to herself,
"is it possible that I have sold what I promised to keep for ever? and
what Leonora gave me? and I have concealed it too, and have been making
a parade of my generosity. O! what would Leonora, what would Louisa,
what would every body think of me, if the truth were known?"

Humiliated and grieved by these reflections, Cecilia began to search in
her own mind for some consoling idea. She began to compare her conduct
with the conduct of others of her own age; and at length, fixing her
comparison upon her brother George, as the companion of whom, from her
infancy, she had been habitually the most emulous, she recollected that