“Lady Honoria,” replied Mrs Delvile, with a sarcastic smile, “the next tale of scandal you oblige me to hear, I will insist for your punishment that you shall read one of Mr Newbury's little books! there are twenty of them that will explain this matter to you, and such reading will at least employ your time as usefully as such tales!” “Well, ma'am,” said Lady Honoria, “I don't know whether you are laughing at me or not, but really I concluded Mr Mortimer only chose to amuse himself in a tête-à-tête with Miss Beverley.” “He was not with Miss Beverley,” cried Mrs Delvile with quickness; “she was alone,--I saw her myself the moment she came in.” “Yes, ma'am,--but not then,-he was gone;”--said Cecilia, endeavouring, but not very successfully, to speak with composure. “I had the honour,” cried Delvile, making, with equal success, the same attempt, “to wait upon Miss Beverley to the little gate; and I was then returning to Lady Honoria when I met her ladyship just coming in.” “Very extraordinary, Mortimer,” said Mr Delvile, staring, “to attend Lady Honoria the last!” “Don't be angry in earnest, Sir,” cried Lady Honoria, gaily, “for I did not mean to turn tell-tale.” Here the subject was dropt; greatly to the joy both of Delvile and Cecilia, who mutually exerted themselves in talking upon what next was started, in order to prevent its being recurred to again. That fear, however, over, Delvile said little more; sadness hung heavily on his mind; he was absent, disturbed, uneasy; yet he endeavoured no longer to avoid Cecilia; on the contrary, when she arose to quit the room, he looked evidently disappointed. The ladies' colds kept them at home all the evening, and Delvile, for the first time since their arrival at the castle, joined them at tea; nor when it was over, did he as usual retire; he loitered, pretended to be caught by a new pamphlet, and looked as anxiously eager to speak with Cecilia, as he had hitherto appeared to shun her. With new emotion and fresh distress Cecilia perceived this change; what he might have to say she could not conjecture, but all that foreran his communication convinced her it was nothing she could wish; and much as she had desired some explanation of his designs, when the long-expected moment seemed arriving, prognostications the most cruel of the event, repressed her impatience, and deadened her curiosity. She earnestly lamented her unfortunate residence in his house, where the adoration of every inhabitant, from his father to the lowest servant, had impressed her with the strongest belief of his general worthiness, and greatly, though imperceptibly, encreased her regard for him, since she had now not a doubt remaining but that some cruel, some fatal obstacle, prohibited their union.