“Do you so much wonder,” he continued, “that I should have hoped in Miss Beverley to have seen some deviation from such rules? and have expected more openness and candour in a young lady who has given so noble a proof of the liberality of her mind and understanding?” “You amaze me beyond measure!” cried she, “what rules, what candour, what liberality, do you mean?” “Must I speak yet more plainly? and if I do, will you bear to hear me?” “Indeed I should be extremely glad if you would give me leave to understand you.” “And may I tell you what has charmed me, as well as what I have presumed to wonder at?” “You may tell me any thing, if you will but be less mysterious.” “Forgive then the frankness you invite, and let me acknowledge to you how greatly I honour the nobleness of your conduct. Surrounded as you are by the opulent and the splendid, unshackled by dependance, unrestrained by authority, blest by nature with all that is attractive, by situation with all that is desirable,--to slight the rich, and disregard the powerful, for the purer pleasure of raising oppressed merit, and giving to desert that wealth in which alone it seemed deficient--how can a spirit so liberal be sufficiently admired, or a choice of so much dignity be too highly extolled?” “I find,” cried Cecilia, “I must forbear any further enquiry, for the more I hear, the less I understand.” “Pardon me, then,” cried he, “if here I return to my first question: whence is it that a young lady who can think so nobly, and act so disinterestedly, should not be uniformly great, simple in truth, and unaffected in sincerity? Why should she be thus guarded, where frankness would do her so much honour? Why blush in owning what all others may blush in envying?” “Indeed you perplex me intolerably,” cried Cecilia, with some vexation, “why Sir, will you not be more explicit?” “And why, Madam,” returned he, with a laugh, “would you tempt me to be more impertinent? have I not said strange things already?” “Strange indeed,” cried she, “for not one of them can I comprehend!” “Pardon, then,” cried he, “and forget them all! I scarce know myself what urged me to say them, but I began inadvertently, without intending to go on, and I have proceeded involuntarily, without knowing how to stop. The fault, however, is ultimately your own, for the sight of you creates an insurmountable desire to converse with you, and your conversation a propensity equally incorrigible to take some interest in your welfare.” He would then have changed the discourse, and Cecilia, ashamed of pressing him further, was for some time silent; but when one of the servants came to inform her that his master meant to wait upon her directly, her unwillingness to leave the matter in suspense induced her, somewhat abruptly, to say, “Perhaps, Sir, you are thinking of Mr Belfield?” “A happy conjecture!” cried he, “but so wild a one, I cannot but marvel how it should occur to you!”