had not any pretence, though her knowledge how much she had to dread
her, past current in her mind for sufficient reason to hate her. The
Angry and the Violent use little discrimination; whom they like, they
enquire not if they approve; but whoever, no matter how unwittingly,
stands in their way, they scruple not to ill use, and conclude they may
laudably detest.

Cecilia, though much disgusted, gave not over her attempt, which she
considered but as her due while she continued in her house. Her general
character, also, for peevishness and haughty ill-breeding, skilfully,
from time to time, displayed, and artfully repined at by Mr Monckton,
still kept her from suspecting any peculiar animosity to herself, and
made her impute all that passed to the mere rancour of ill-humour. She
confined herself, however, as much as possible to her own apartment,
where her sorrow for Mrs Charlton almost hourly increased, by the
comparison she was forced upon making of her house with the Grove.

That worthy old lady left her grand-daughters her co-heiresses and sole
executrixes. She bequeathed from them nothing considerable, though she
left some donations for the poor, and several of her friends were
remembered by small legacies. Among them Cecilia had her picture, and
favourite trinkets, with a paragraph in her will, that as there was no
one she so much loved, had her fortune been less splendid, she should
have shared with her grand-daughters whatever she had to bestow.

Cecilia was much affected by this last and solemn remembrance. She more
than ever coveted to be alone, that she might grieve undisturbed, and
she lamented without ceasing the fatigue and the illness which, in so
late a period, as it proved, of her life, she had herself been the
means of occasioning to her.