 he had seen; and with no favourable description of the looks and manner of Willoughby, which had indeed appeared to him to be extremely cruel and insulting towards Celestina. Lady Horatia, with whom Willoughby was no favourite, and who extremely disliked his sister Lady Molyneux, saw his conduct in the same point of view as Thorold represented it; and, after some conversation on the subject, said, that though she was much concerned for the shock Celestina had received, yet that upon

the whole it might perhaps be better for her that this circumstance had happened. "For now," said she, "I think she will, possessing, as she does, so much proper pride, be convinced, that even if the story coming from Lady Castlenorth has no foundation, as I myself suppose it has, that still she ought not to indulge her early prejudice in favour of a man, who, whatever he may have pretended or she may have believed, never intended to act honourably by her, and now not only deserts but insults her."
Thorold heartily assented to this opinion, and sat down to supper with a heart somewhat relieved from the extreme uneasiness which the emotion of Celestina on the appearance of Willoughby had given him. Still, however, he could not eat, he could not converse; but as soon as he could disengage himself, he took leave of Lady Horatia, and full of anxiety, and trembling least all the hopes he had of late so fondly cherished should be blasted, he returned to his lodgings.


CELESTINA, in retiring to her own room, had hoped to recall her scattered and oppressed spirits, and clearly recollect all that had befallen her; but the angry, the disdainful look which that countenance wore where she had been accustomed to see only the smiles of approbation or the tenderly anxious looks of love, was the image still most prevalent in her mind, joined to the painful idea of the ruined constitution of him whose life was ever dearer to her than her own.
The cruelty of his being in London, of his going into public without ever having seen or wrote to her, sunk deeply into her heart. "Ah! Willoughby," exclaimed she, "is it thus we meet again after such

a parting? Is this the end of all your assurances, that you would ever be my friend? that you would learn to consider me as your sister if we were indeed related? alas! is it thus then you throw me off entirely, and seem sorry to remember that you ever saw me?" A flood of tears followed this cruel reflection
