 constitution and brought on in the early autumn of her days the infirmities of old age; and she knew, that after having taken her as her daughter, and accustomed her to share all the indulgencies which her own rank and income procured, it would be a very painful reverse of fortune were she to leave her in the

narrow circumstances in which she found her. To save much out of her jointure had never been her wish, and was hardly now in her power. Her own fortune, in default of children, returned to her brother; and all she had to dispose of was about two thousand pounds. This she gave, by a will made in the fourth month of their being together, to Celestina; and with this, and what she before had, she thought that Celestina might, if married to Montague Thorold, enjoy through life that easy competence which was the utmost of her ambition. The embarrassed circumstances of Willoughby, which the good natured world had always exaggerated, and which Lady Horatia had considered as irretrievable; his very expensive place at Alvestone, which she knew it required a large fortune to keep up; the doubtful birth of Celestina, whom she always fancied too nearly related to him; and some prejudice against him, merely because he was the brother of Lady Molyneux, whom she so very much disliked;

all combined to raise in the mind of Lady Horatia a desire to impede every step towards the re-union of Celestina and Willoughby, and to promote her alliance with Montague Thorold, near whose residence, wherever it was, she proposed to take a house in summer, and to have them frequently with her in winter at her house in town.
Though she had not disclosed all her intentions, Celestina yet knew enough to be deeply sensible of the uncommon generosity of her friend, and the whole study of her life was to shew that she was so. She made it a rule never to oppose the wishes of Lady Horatia whenever they were clearly expressed; and therefore it was that she had often, contrary to her own judgment and to her own inclinations, suffered the assiduities of Montague Thorold; and seemed to the world to give him that encouragement, the ill effects of which she endeavoured to counteract, by ingenuously declaring to him the impossibility of her ever

making the return he expected to his affection.
Too certain that Lady Horatia would be disappointed if not displeased if she declined on this evening to go out, and not having courage to tell her the step she had taken in regard to writing to Willoughby, she was compelled to struggle with her uneasiness, and to
