"I like it of all things!" answered Morrice, and starting from his
chair, he skipped to another.

"So should I too," cried Mr Monckton, instantly taking his place,
"were I to remove from any seat but this."

Morrice, though he felt himself outwitted, was the first to laugh,
and seemed as happy in the change as Mr Monckton himself.

Mr Monckton now, addressing himself to Cecilia, said, "We are going
to lose you, and you seem concerned at leaving us; yet, in a very
few months you will forget Bury, forget its inhabitants, and forget
its environs."

"If you think so," answered Cecilia, "must I not thence infer that
Bury, its inhabitants, and its environs, will in a very few months
forget me?"

"Ay, ay, and so much the better!" said Lady Margaret, muttering
between her teeth, "so much the better!" "I am sorry you think so,
madam," cried Cecilia, colouring at her ill-breeding.

"You will find," said Mr Monckton, affecting the same ignorance of
her meaning that Cecilia really felt, "as you mix with the world,
you will find that Lady Margaret has but expressed what by almost
every body is thought: to neglect old friends, and to court new
acquaintance, though perhaps not yet avowedly delivered as a precept
from parents to children, is nevertheless so universally recommended
by example, that those who act differently, incur general censure
for affecting singularity."