 lover found in every hour of those days more reason to congratulate himself on the choice he had made, his friend grew insensibly so interested for Celestina, that volatile and unsteady as he had been till then, he found, that though, considering her already as Willoughby's wife, he could form neither hopes or designs

for himself, yet that her happiness was the first wish of his heart; and that without violating his warm friendship towards his friend, he, for the first time in his life, envied a man who was going to be married.
The present happiness of Willoughby could be exceeded in his idea only by that which he imagined he had secured to himself by having determined to live only for the happiness of Celestina; and in continually contemplating her perfections, he endeavoured to justify to himself the measures he had taken, and to dismiss from his mind the unpleasing circumstances which might have robbed him of her for ever. He had written, after many attempts, to Lord Castlenorth, declining to carry any farther a negociation in which his inclinations had never any share; and though he softened this mortifying information as well as he could, he was sensible of the bitterness and resentment it must create, and indeed was so little satisfied himself

with his performance, that after the fifth or sixth attempt, he would still have delayed or wholly have evaded sending the letter, if Vavasour had not with many arguments and much difficulty persuaded him, that, resolved as he was to break with the family, any letter he could write in explanation, would be less offensive than total silence.
Celestina was very solicitous to know how he had acquitted himself towards his uncle; yet, as he seemed sedulously to avoid the subject, she feared to give him pain by recurring to it, and yielded perhaps too easily to the artifices she saw he used to draw her thoughts from it: while he, studying every turn of her speaking face, often saw, by the pensive cast it assumed, uneasy thoughts arise in her mind; and on those occasions, exerting himself to dispel them, he delighted to recall their sparkling vivacity to her eyes:
E'l lampeggiar dell' angelico riso,*

which never bestowed greater charms on any countenance than on that of Celestina.

It was now decided that as soon as the settlements were finished, which Willoughby had directed rather according to his love than to his fortune, and which were likely to take up about three weeks, Celestina was to become mistress of Alvestone. He had promised her to forbear making about that delightful place any of the alterations he meditated,
