: her reason, her genuine affection for him, told her, that to indulge this tenderness was injurious to him, and she determined to shew that she could sacrifice herself to his advantage, and that contented

with his brotherly attachment, she could resign him to the fortunate Miss Fitz-Hayman. The terms however in which she declared this, the softness of her voice, and her eyes filled with tears, were little calculated to reconcile Willoughby to the resolution, which, after a long dialogue, she urged him to adopt; she assured him that whatever might be her own fate, she should never forgive herself were she to be the means of his breaking a promise so solemnly given, and given at such a time, to her dear deceased benefactress. "No! my brother," said she, "she is dead, but my obligations to her can never be annihilated; and what would become of me, were I ever to feel myself reproached for ingratitude to her memory, were I to destroy the fabric she had raised for the happiness of her beloved son, and to fancy that the spirit of my more than mother, which I now often invocate with conscious pleasure, should, instead of beholding her Celestina with complacency not unsuited

to her present state of happiness, see her degraded into a selfish and unworthy being, who repays her benefits with the blackest ingratitude."
Willoughby, whose love, once suffered to obtain the advantage, now acquired more power every moment, combated these objections with very dangerous eloquence; telling Celestina that he had determined the evening before, on a sight of Miss Fitz-Hayman, who was insupportable to him, to put an end to the negociation, and say plainly to his uncle that it was impossible for him to fulfil an engagement in which his heart never had any share. Celestina represented to him the situation of his fortune; the absolute necessity there was for his marrying one who could repair its deficiency, and restore him to the splendid affluence of his ancestors; but for this he talked of oeconomy and simplicity, by which when they lived entirely at Alvestone he should be able to repair every thing; then for a moment indulging his vivid imagination in

painting the happiness they should enjoy there together, (images of felicity which reflected in stronger colours those which Celestina had a thousand times formed, though knowing they could never be realized,) he thought suddenly of the fatal promise he had given to his mother, and his heart seemed to shrink from the idea of breaking it to obtain even the highest human happiness, which under such circumstances he felt
