the very moment when tenderness should be banished from your
intercourse, it would bear down all opposition of judgment, spirit, and
dignity: you would hang upon every word, because every word would seem
the last, every look, every expression would be rivetted in your
memory, and his image in this parting distress would-be painted upon
your mind, in colours that would eat into its peace, and perhaps never
be erased."

"Enough, enough," said Cecilia, "I will not see him,--I will not even
desire it!"

"Is this compliance or conviction? Is what I have said true, or only
terrifying?"

"Both, both! I believe, indeed, the conflict would have overpowered
me,--I see you are right,--and I thank you, madam, for saving me from a
scene I might so cruelly have rued."

"Oh Daughter of my mind!" cried Mrs Delvile, rising and embracing her,
"noble, generous, yet gentle Cecilia! what tie, what connection, could
make you more dear to me? Who is there like you? Who half so excellent?
So open to reason, so ingenuous in error! so rational! so just! so
feeling, yet so wise!"

"You are very good," said Cecilia, with a forced serenity, "and I am
thankful that your resentment for the past obstructs not your lenity
for the present."

Alas, my love, how shall I resent the past, when I ought myself to have
foreseen this calamity! and I _should_ have foreseen it, had I not been