; till at length Captain Thorold, having paraded about himself for near half an hour, withdrew.
Then it was, that, from the conversation of her friend, Celestina understood how much such an event would be expected to affect her sentiments in favour of Montague Thorold; and how impossible Lady Horatia considered it for her, after all the sufferings he must sustain on her account, to delay rewarding those sufferings and his long and ardent attachment to her longer than till his recovery: of which, notwithstanding what Captain Thorold had

said of the possibility of danger, she seemed not to doubt; though she expressed great concern for the pain he must endure, and great anxiety to be informed of his actual situation. To all that she said, Celestina hardly answered a word—her heart was too much oppressed; and she could say nothing that would not appear either like insensibility, ingratitude, or like the anxious solicitude of love. She wished to avoid either: she wished to be alone; and though the determination Lady Horatia almost immediately formed to visit Montague Thorold herself, was a measure which must strongly confirm all the reports that she wished to discourage, yet it released her to her own reflections, and she was glad at that moment to see her friend depart.
Her own reflections, to which she was now left, were most uneasy—She knew that such an affair must unavoidably be much and immediately talked of: she knew how much it would be misrepresented, and what conclusions would be made upon it. The expression used by Willoughby the evening before still vibrated in her ears: "What! and is all this

terror, all this apprehension, for Montague Thorold." It was displeasing then to him that she should feel an interest for Montague Thorold—and the little tenderness he had appeared to shew her, was repressed the moment he understood who was the subject of her alarm—conscious that hopeless as she had long been of his affection, and submitting to the necessity of their separation, she had yet never bestowed on another the heart he had resigned, she could not bear to think how much every circumstance had contributed to make him think, that she had lightly given it to the first candidate; nor could her mind dwell without extreme concern, on the pain this affair would give the elder Mr. Thorold, whose hopes were, she well knew, centered in his youngest son, and who would not only be distressed by the sickness and danger to which he had thus exposed himself, but he hurt at his having acted so contrary to those principles he had always endeavoured to inculcate, as to giving or receiving a challenge
