But though she was, perhaps, the only person thus astonished, she was by no means the only one enraptured; for notwithstanding she was too earnestly engaged to remark the company in general, she could not avoid taking notice of an old gentleman who stood by one of the side scenes, against which he leant his head in a manner that concealed his face, with an evident design to be wholly absorbed in listening: and during the songs of Pacchierotti he sighed so deeply that Cecilia, struck by his uncommon sensibility to the power of music, involuntarily watched him, whenever her mind was sufficiently at liberty to attend to any emotions but its own. As soon as the rehearsal was over, the gentlemen of Mrs Harrel's party crowded before her box; and Cecilia then perceived that the person whose musical enthusiasm had excited her curiosity, was the same old gentleman whose extraordinary behaviour had so much surprized her at the house of Mr Monckton. Her desire to obtain some information concerning him again reviving, she was beginning to make fresh enquiries, when she was interrupted by the approach of Captain Aresby. That gentleman, advancing to her with a smile of the extremest self-complacency, after hoping, in a low voice, he had the honour of seeing her well, exclaimed, “How wretchedly empty is the town! petrifying to a degree! I believe you do not find yourself at present _obsede_ by too much company?” “_At present_, I believe the contrary!” cried Mr Gosport. “Really!” said the Captain, unsuspicious of his sneer, “I protest I have hardly seen a soul. Have you tried the Pantheon yet, ma'am?” “No, sir.” “Nor I; I don't know whether people go there this year. It is not a favourite _spectacle_ with me; that sitting to hear the music is a horrid bore. Have you done the Festino the honour to look in there yet?” “No, sir.” “Permit me, then, to have the honour to beg you will try it.” “O, ay, true,” cried Mrs Harrel; “I have really used you very ill about that; I should have got you in for a subscriber: but Lord, I have done nothing for you yet, and you never put me in mind. There's the ancient music, and Abel's concert;--as to the opera, we may have a box between us;--but there's the ladies' concert we must try for; and there's--O Lord, fifty other places we must think of!” “Oh times of folly and dissipation!” exclaimed a voice at some distance; “Oh mignons of idleness and luxury! What next will ye invent for the perdition of your time! How yet further will ye proceed in the annihilation of virtue!” Everybody stared; but Mrs Harrel coolly said, “Dear, it's only the man-hater!” “The man-hater?” repeated Cecilia, who found that the speech was made by the object of her former curiosity; “is that the name by which he is known?” “He is known by fifty names,” said Mr Monckton; “his friends call him the _moralist_; the young ladies, the _crazy-man_; the macaronies, the _bore_; in short, he is called by any and every name but his own.”