 still thought had been created by the intrigues and machinations of Lady Castlenorth.
In art, however, she was so much his superior, that the very means he adopted to obtain satisfaction, was, in her hands, a means of bewildering more deeply. She now affected the most perfect candour; and whenever she saw him touching with a tender hand on the subject, she appeared to feel for his uneasiness, and ready to give him every satisfaction in her power.
Willing to avail himself of this apparent disposition in his favour, he one day, when he was sitting alone with Lady Castlenorth, asked her, whether she had now no traces of Hannah Biscoe, the servant who alone seemed possessed of the circumstances into which he most wished to enquire. Lady Castlenorth answered with great apparent ingenuousness, that she did not exactly

know, as she had no connection at all with her, but that if he wished to make any enquiry, her woman should write out the directions to her relations, which she did not herself recollect.
Willoughby eagerly seized on this offer, and begged that these directions might be immediately written out for him. Lady Castlenorth instantly called her woman, and questioned her as to her recollection of the abode of the relations of this Hannah Biscoe; the woman named what she knew; her lady directed her to put it down, and Willoughby left the house, flattering himself that he had at length obtained a clue which might lead him to escape from the labyrinth of error and mistake where he had so severely suffered.
It was, however, by no means Lady Castlenorth's plan to suffer Willoughby to return to England in search of this woman, whose direction she seemed so willing to give him; and as from the eagerness and agitation he expressed on receiving this paper,

it appeared but too likely that he meditated going himself, in order to preclude the possibility of his views being again frustrated, she found that all her art would be necessary to prevent his escaping her.
Fortunately for her views, Lord Castlenorth was seized a few hours afterwards with one of those illnesses which had so often reduced him to the brink of the grave; and the presence of his nephew, which he so earnestly desired, the generous and feeling heart of Willoughby could not deny; while he endured the cruellest restraint in staying, and thought every hour an age till he could go himself to England, and renew his hitherto hopeless research after the real situation of Celestina.
Thus passed, however, a month after the arrival of Celestina in London; and then the arrival of an English gentleman at Naples
