“Circumstances the most singular, and necessity the most unavoidable,” he answered, “should alone have ever tempted me to form it. No longer ago than yesterday morning, I believed myself incapable of even wishing it; but extraordinary situations call for extraordinary resolutions, and in private as well as public life, palliate, at least, extraordinary actions. Alas! the proposal which so much offends you is my final resource! it is the sole barrier between myself and perpetual misery!--the only expedient in my power to save me from eternally parting from you!--for I am compelled now cruelly to confess, that my family, I am certain, will never consent to our union!” “Neither, then, Sir,” cried Cecilia, with great spirit, “will I! The disdain I may meet with I pretend not to retort, but wilfully to encounter, were meanly to deserve it. I will enter into no family in opposition to its wishes, I will consent to no alliance that may expose me to indignity. Nothing is so contagious as contempt!--The example of your friends might work powerfully upon yourself, and who shall dare assure me you would not catch the infection?” “I dare assure you!” cried he; “hasty you may perhaps think me, and somewhat impetuous I cannot deny myself; but believe me not of so wretched a character as to be capable, in any affair of moment, of fickleness or caprice.” “But what, Sir, is my security to the contrary? Have you not this moment avowed that but yesterday you held in abhorrence the very plan that to-day you propose? And may you not to-morrow resume again the same opinion?” “Cruel Miss Beverley! how unjust is this inference! If yesterday I disapproved what to-day I recommend, a little recollection must surely tell you why; and that not my opinion, but my situation is changed.” The conscious Cecilia here turned away her head; too certain he alluded to the discovery of her partiality. “Have you not yourself,” he continued, “witnessed the steadiness of my mind? Have you not beheld me fly, when I had power to pursue, and avoid, when I had opportunity to seek you? After witnessing my constancy upon such trying occasions, is it equitable, is it right to suspect me of wavering?” “But what,” cried she, “was the constancy which brought you into Suffolk?--When all occasion was over for our meeting any more, when you told me you were going abroad, and took leave of me for ever,--where, then, was your steadiness in this unnecessary journey?” “Have a care,” cried he, half smiling, and taking a letter from his pocket, “have a care, upon this point, how you provoke me to spew my justification!” “Ah!” cried Cecilia, blushing, “'tis some trick of Lady Honoria!” “No, upon my honour. The authority is less doubtful; I believe I should hardly else have regarded it.”