 Everard was privately married to Mrs. Willoughby. But what signifies talking about it," added he, "seeing her again change colour—"You have just been desiring me to say nothing about it. George seems to me to have made up his mind about it: he will marry his cousin, and retrieve his estates, as was his first plan; and my fair Celestina" (and he took her hand) "will look out for somebody else to transfer those affections to that he resigns."

"No, Sir," said Celestina, withdrawing her hand hastily from him, "they are not, I assure you, so easily transferred."
"I am glad to hear it," replied Vavasour, without being at all discomposed by her manner; "for then I hope this pedantic young fellow, whom I find here travelling with you, will not have the presumption to suppose he has any chance of obtaining them? Pray tell me—how comes he here with you? is he any relation of the people you are with?"
This was a question it was impossible for Celestina to answer ingenuously. The piercing and enquiring eyes of Vavasour, inflamed and fierce from the late hours and free use of wine the preceding night, were fixed on her face. She changed countenance; felt that she did, and again her complexion altered. The various emotions with which she was agitated, consciousness that she must no longer think of Willoughby as a lover, yet could never admit another to that distinction, consciousness

too that Montague Thorold must appear in the eyes of the world to have succeeded to that place, and anger that Vavasour should thus presume on the confidence of Willoughby to question her with a freedom he had otherwise no pretensions to, all combined to affect, to distress, and to deprive her for a few moments of that presence of mind, which, from the strength and clearness of her understanding, was usually at her command.
Vavasour, who, from the time he found Willoughby must in all probability resign her, made no doubt of succeeding to her affections; who had no idea of the sensations which pressed on her heart, from his total inability to feel them himself; became irritated and impatient at the silence his own impetuosity had occasioned. He sat eagerly reading on her countenance the emotions of her heart, and interpreting them his own way: again he repeated his question—"How came young Thorold

with you? Is he related to these Elphinstone's?"
"You must enquire of him," Celestina was on the point of saying; but the fear least
