 Montague Thorold, not only diverted him from that intention, but gave his sister both time and opportunity to represent her as neither wanting or wishing for that attention, which he thought he should, as a friend, shew her. These insinuations had gradually their effect: not however in curing that invincible tenderness

he always felt for her, but in mingling with it so much bitterness that his life became more than ever wretched. The accidentally meeting Celestina at an assembly, gay, unconcerned, and, as he believed, forgetting her former attachment to him in her new preference to Montague Thorold; the second meeting, which happened at the opera; and evéry thing that he heard both from his sister and in general conversation where Celestina was mentioned, all served to confirm this idea; while the letter which would have undeceived him, never reached his hands. It was left with Lady Molyneux; who, determined as she was to impede every advance towards a reconciliation between her brother and Celestina, made no scruple, on hearing from whom it came, to open, read, and, after some consideration, to deftroy it.
Of the apparent neglect, therefore, which Celestina imputed to Willoughby, he had accused ber; and thought, that if she had not determined to connect herself with

Montague Thorold without any attention to his wishes or reliance on his regard, she would have written to or sent to him: while his neglect of a letter by which she thought she should awaken all the tenderness of friendship which she hoped he still retained for her, and the angry and disdainful looks with which he had twice met her, wounded both her affection and her pride. Thus, by the treachery of Lady Molyneux, all commerce even of civility was at an end between them; and such was the situation of Willoughby, when the Castlenorths arrived in London from Italy.
Embarrassed more and more in his affairs, and on the point of being overwhelmed with pecuniary distress, it was more than time that he should determine what to do; and this determination, the return of the Castlenorths to England was intended to hasten.
Always believing that to the artifices of Lady Castlenorth he had owed his being compelled to quit Celestina, and still hoping

to detect those artifices, he had, by frequent visits at his uncle's, and by a sort of tacit and reluctant acquiescence in many of his plans, given Miss Fitz-Hayman great reason to suppose that he intended fulfilling his original engagement with her: yet now that he saw he must either continue to act what he could not but feel was a dishonourable and disingenuous
