 he dared not act as if he wholly disbelieved it. Yet so perverse is an heart under the influence of such passion as he felt, that while he had relinquished her, and agreed to marry another, left that relationship should really exist, he detested Thorold for having, as he believed, possessed himself of those affections, which, otherwise than as her brother, he had owned he dared not claim.
When he left Celestina under the care of Mr. Howard at Ranelagh the preceding evening, he had gone, as he promised, in search of Vavasour; but not finding him any where about the room, or in the avenues to the Rotunda, he had gone to his lodgings, and waited there till near four in the morning.—He then left orders with his servant to send for him the moment his master came; but Vavasour, instead of returning to his lodgings at all that evening, slept somewhere else; and only called there in a hackney-coach at

half past five o'clock to take his pistols; and his servant being ordered to attend him, with the surgeon, there was no possibility of his man giving Willoughby notice; and of course he could do nothing to stop a rencontre of which he did not hear till after it was over.
Vavasour, who then came to him, was not sober: and Willoughby saw, with more concern than surprise, that the habits his friend had acquired since his last absence were becoming inveterate, and were ruining alike his constitution, his fortune, and his understanding. Though he himself detested Montague Thorold, and cursed the hour when he had put Celestina under the protection of his father, and by that means thrown him in her way; he was; too generous, even to an enemy, not to feel that Vavasour had behaved with unwarrantable brutality; and notwithstanding his long friendship for him, he felt too, that had he been as successful as he believed. Thorold to be, all that friendship would have been cancelled.
He was vexed, however, at the conversation which this foolish business must occasion;

and in which he knew the name of Celestina must be joined with that of Montague Thorold: and when Vavasour spoke with some triumph of his having chastised the young pedant, Willoughby, with a peevishness very unusual with him, said, he heartily wished he had let it alone.
From the little conversation he had with Lady Castlenorth the evening before, he found she expected him to wait on them the next day. Reluctantly, and with an aching heart, he had then given a sort of promise,
