Cecilia; Or, Memoirs of an Heiress — Volume 1Burney, Fanny
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Cecilia; Or, Memoirs of an Heiress — Volume 1
Burney, Fanny
England -- Fiction; Inheritance and succession -- Fiction; Love stories; Young women -- Fiction
At the door of the Pantheon they were joined by Mr Arnott and Sir Robert
Floyer, whom Cecilia now saw with added aversion: they entered the great
room during the second act of the Concert, to which as no one of the
party but herself had any desire to listen, no sort of attention was
paid; the ladies entertaining themselves as if no Orchestra was in the
room, and the gentlemen, with an equal disregard to it, struggling for
a place by the fire, about which they continued hovering till the music
was over.
Soon after they were seated, Mr Meadows, sauntering towards them,
whispered something to Mrs Mears, who, immediately rising, introduced
him to Cecilia; after which, the place next to her being vacant, he cast
himself upon it, and lolling as much at his ease as his situation would
permit, began something like a conversation with her.
“Have you been long in town, ma'am?”
“No, Sir.”
“This is not your first winter?”
“Of being in town, it is.”
“Then you have something new to see; O charming! how I envy you!--Are
you pleased with the Pantheon?”
“Very much; I have seen no building at all equal to it.”
“You have not been abroad. Travelling is the ruin of all happiness!
There's no looking at a building here after seeing Italy.”
“Does all happiness, then, depend upon the sight of buildings?” said
Cecilia, when, turning towards her companion, she perceived him yawning,
with such evident inattention to her answer, that not chusing to
interrupt his reverie, she turned her head another way.
For some minutes he took no notice of this; and then, as if suddenly
recollecting himself, he called out hastily, “I beg your pardon, ma'am,
you were saying something?”
“No, Sir, nothing worth repeating.”
“O pray don't punish me so severely as not to let me hear it!”
Cecilia, though merely not to seem offended at his negligence, was
then again beginning an answer, when, looking at him as she spoke, she
perceived that he was biting his nails with so absent an air, that he
appeared not to know he had asked any question. She therefore broke off,
and left him to his cogitation.
Sometime after he addressed her again, saying, “Don't you find this
place extremely tiresome, ma'am?”
“Yes, Sir,” said she, half laughing, “it is, indeed, not very
entertaining!”
“Nothing is entertaining,” answered he, “for two minutes together.
Things are so little different one from another, that there is no making
pleasure out of any thing. We go the same dull round for ever; nothing
new, no variety! all the same thing over again! Are you fond of public
places, ma'am?”
“Yes, Sir, _soberly_, as Lady Grace says.”
“Then I envy you extremely, for you have some amusement always in your
own power. How desirable that is!”
“And have not you the same resources?”
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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