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Cecilia; Or, Memoirs of an Heiress — Volume 3 by Fanny Burney
page 16 of 424 (03%)
The journey was melancholy and tedious: Mrs Charlton, extremely
fatigued by the unusual hurry and exercise both of mind and body which
she had lately gone through, was obliged to travel very slowly, and to
lie upon the road. Cecilia, however, was in no haste to proceed: she
was going to no one she wished to see, she was wholly without
expectation of meeting with any thing that could give her pleasure. The
unfortunate expedition in which she had been engaged, left her now
nothing but regret, and only promised her in future sorrow and
mortification.

Mrs Charlton, after her return home, still continued ill, and Cecilia,
who constantly attended her, had the additional affliction of imputing
her indisposition to herself. Every thing she thought conspired to
punish the error she had committed; her proceedings were discovered,
though her motives were unknown; the Delvile family could not fail to
hear of her enterprize, and while they attributed it to her temerity,
they would exult in its failure: but chiefly hung upon her mind the
unaccountable prohibition of her marriage. Whence that could proceed
she was wholly without ability to divine, yet her surmizes were not
more fruitless than various. At one moment she imagined it some frolic
of Morrice, at another some perfidy of Monckton, and at another an idle
and unmeaning trick of some stranger to them all. But none of these
suppositions carried with them any air of probability; Morrice, even if
he had watched their motions and pursued them to the church, which his
inquisitive impertinence made by no means impossible, could yet hardly
have either time or opportunity to engage any woman in so extraordinary
an undertaking; Mr Monckton, however averse to the connection, she
considered as a man of too much honour to break it off in a manner so
alarming and disgraceful; and mischief so wanton in any stranger,
seemed to require a share of unfeeling effrontery, which could fall to
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