 that mind whose virtues she believed to be tarnished, she would have found it as worthy as ever of her tenderness, and

entitled to all her pity. Tormented by an affection which he could not indulge for one woman, and entangled by a series of perverse events in an engagement with another; embarrassed in his circumstances, and discontented with himself; his whole life passed in a continual tumult of contending passions; and whatever means he took to calm and mitigate them seemed only to irritate his sufferings.—Thus, when he left his own lodgings on the day of his interview with Miss Fitz-Hayman and his meeting Celestina, he went to the hotel where Vavasour usually lived when he was in town; and where it happened that a party of their mutual acquaintance that day dined: this prevented his having any conversation with Vavasour, which, though it might have contributed but little to relieve his vexation as to Montague Thorold, would have eased his heart by unburthening it to his friend; and Vavasour drank so much, that there was afterwards no hopes of his hearing him rationally. With him he was prevailed upon, at a late hour, to go to Ranelagh;—where he saw Celestina again with the very man to whom he had been so repeatedly told

she had engaged herself; and there, though Celestina happened not to see them together, he was compelled to take several turns with Lady Castlenorth, her daughter, and his sister; thus confirming, by his appearance in public with the two former, what it was indeed too late to retract, though he had already most bitterly repented it.
The quarrel between Vavasour and Montague Thorold, of which his suddenly quitting the place where he met Celestina was partly the occasion (for had he staid he might have prevented it), added to the conviction he now had that Thorold was very soon to be her husband; and increased his vexation, in despite of all that reason could say to counteract the effect of it. That reason repeatedly asked him—if Celestina had really been brought up and acknowledged as his sister, and had with so small a fortune been addressed by Thorold, and herself approved him, whether he could in such a case have made any reasonable objection? He was compelled to answer no! yet his heart revolted against the assent which common sense urged him to give to a marriage which differed in nothing from what

would then have been the case, but in early prejudice. He never could learn to consider Celestina as related to him by blood; nor did all the pains he had taken to learn the truth convince him of it; though
