informed you were engaged, and upon your engagement built our security.
Else had I been more alarmed, for my own admiration would have bid me
look forward to my son's. You were just, indeed, the woman he had least
chance to resist, you were precisely the character to seize his very
soul. To a softness the most fatally alluring, you join a dignity which
rescues from their own contempt even the most humble of your admirers.
You seem born to have all the world wish your exaltation, and no part
of it murmur at your superiority. Were any obstacle but this
insuperable one in the way, should nobles, nay, should princes offer
their daughters to my election, I would reject without murmuring the
most magnificent proposals, and take in triumph to my heart my son's
nobler choice!"

"Oh madam," cried Cecilia, "talk not to me thus!--speak not such
flattering words!--ah, rather scorn and upbraid me, tell me you despise
my character, my family and my connections,--load, load me with
contempt, but do not thus torture me with approbation!"

"Pardon me, sweetest girl, if I have awakened those emotions you so
wisely seek to subdue. May my son but emulate your example, and my
pride in his virtue shall be the solace of my affliction for his
misfortunes."

She then tenderly embraced her, and abruptly took her leave.

Cecilia had now acted her part, and acted it to her own satisfaction;
but the curtain dropt when Mrs Delvile left the house, nature resumed
her rights, and the sorrow of her heart was no longer disguised or
repressed. Some faint ray of hope had till now broke through the
gloomiest cloud of her misery, and secretly flattered her that its