, however, so little attention to what he heard, that before he reached the end of his first day's journey he had forgot that such a person as the Captain existed, as he would probably have forgotten Lady Castlenorth herself, had not the purpose of his present journey, and all the transactions of the last twelve months of his life, brought her and the consequences of

those transactions too forcibly to his memory.
While Willoughby was thus on his journey, the disquiet and unhappiness of Celestina, though she was compelled to appear to conquer them, were but little abated.
Nothing, in the opinion of Lady Horatia, contributed so much to wean the mind from indulging sorrow or encouraging weakness, as variety of company and continual dissipation; and in these, notwithstanding her reluctance, Celestina was continually engaged. She now more than ever regretted that she had relinquished that plan of life which she had fixed upon when first left, by the death of Mrs. Willoughby, to seek a new one. The quiet farm house in Devonshire where Cathcatt and Jessy lived, the tender attention she should be there sure to meet with, the not unpleasing melancholy of Mrs. Elphinstone, and the perfect seclusion she might there enjoy from a world where nothing gave her any real pleasure, were ideas which were now always

returning to her mind with new power. There, she thought her sad heart might be laid open to the pitying sympathy of her first and most beloved friend, and find some satisfaction amidst it's own disappointments in witnessing the happiness of that friend, to which she had been so, greatly instrumental; and there she might wander whole days among the fields and copses, indulging herself in repeating the name of Willoughby, in thinking of him, in reading again those books they had read together, painting the plants he admired, and composing melancholy verses, which above every other occupation soothed her mind. But when she had represented to herself all the mournful pleasure she should in such a situation enjoy, and half determined to gratify herself, the ingratitude of which she should be guilty towards Lady Horatia destroyed her resolves; and alas! she recollected too, that at the farm of Jessy she saw from almost every field, and from some of the windows of the house, Alvestone Park,

where Miss Fitz-Hayman would soon be mistress; the sight she thought she could not bear; and her mind turned with terror from the idea of it. There were also very strong objections against her going into the immediate neighbourhood of Montague Thorold, if she meant not to give him encouragement; and these
