, Celestina again sat down to recollect her fatigued spirits. She had some hours before determined to write to Lady Horatia Howard, and accept of the invitation so repeatedly offered her, as soon as she saw Mrs. Elphinstone safe in the protection

and assistance of Cathcart, who was to meet them in London.
This letter, therefore, she wrote, and forwarded; and as neither the weather or any other circumstance was now likely to render their progress hazardous, Mrs. Elphinstone agreed that they would set out at a very early hour the next morning.
The day, however, was of necessity to be ended where they were; and it was very certain that Vavasour would pass it with them. He had ordered for them every thing they were likely to have occasion for, in a stile infinitely superior to what they would themselves have thought of; and when they met at dinner, he received them as his guests, and when his natural vivacity was heightened by that sort of triumph that he felt on finding that Thorold was gone, his exulting spirits were such as to be cruelly oppressive both to Mrs. Elphinstone and Celestina.
Incapable of entering into their feelings, he had no idea of repressing his own. He

fancied there no longer existed any obstacle to his project in regard to Celestina; and as that project had long been the first of his heart, and had become doubly important from the opposition it had met with, he concealed no part of the pleasure he felt at what he fancied the absolute certainty of its immediate accomplishment.
This was conduct that was insupportably distressing to Celestina. He spoke without scruple of the resignation Willoughby had made of her hand, and seemed to have as little delicacy as to the occasion of it. Of an attachment to him, abstracted from every idea of becoming his wife, Vavasour had no idea; and Celestina had no courage to urge it; so entirely did his want of feeling, and the proud certainty he shewed of his own success, overwhelm her. All she could do was, to entreat Mrs. Elphinstone not to leave her with him, and to assist her as much as possible in attempting at least to check that assuming manner, for which neither her former friendship for Vavasour,

nor the regard Willoughby had for him, could, in her opinion, offer any apology.
Fortunately, however, for both her and her friend, two young men of fortune, much acquainted with Vavasour, arrived at the inn early in the evening, and seeing his servants, enquired for him, and were shewn into the room almost as soon as dinner was