Cecilia, distressed and trembling herself, conjured her to rise and be consoled; but Mrs Harrel, weak and frightened, could only weep and supplicate; “I don't ask you,” she cried, “to give the money yourself, but only to send for my brother, that he may protect me, and beg Mr Harrel not to treat me so cruelly,--consider but what a long, long journey I am going to make! consider how often you used to say you would love me for ever! consider you have robbed me of the tenderest brother in the world!--Oh Miss Beverley, send for him back, or be a sister to me yourself, and let not your poor Priscilla leave her native land without help or pity!” Cecilia, wholly overcome, now knelt too, and embracing her with tears, said “Oh Priscilla, plead and reproach no more! what you wish shall be yours,--I will send for your brother,--I will do what you please!” “Now you are my friend indeed!” cried Mrs Harrel, “let me but see my brother, and his heart will yield to my distress, and he will soften Mr Harrel by giving his unhappy sister this parting bounty.” Cecilia then took a pen in her hand to write to Mr Arnott; but struck almost in the same moment with a notion of treachery in calling him from a retreat which her own counsel made him seek, professedly to expose him to a supplication which from his present situation might lead him to ruin, she hastily flung it from her, and exclaimed “No, excellent Mr Arnott, I will not so unworthily betray you!” “And can you, Miss Beverley, can you at last,” cried Mrs Harrel, “be so barbarous as to retract?” “No, my poor Priscilla,” answered Cecilia, “I cannot so cruelly disappoint you; my pity shall however make no sufferer but myself,--I cannot send for Mr Arnott,--from me you must have the money, and may it answer the purpose for which it is given, and restore to you the tenderness of your husband, and the peace of your own heart!” Priscilla, scarce waiting to thank her, flew with this intelligence to Mr Harrel; who with the same impetuosity, scarce waiting to say he was glad of it, ran himself to bring the Jew from whom the money was to be procured. Every thing was soon settled, Cecilia had no time for retracting, and repentance they had not the delicacy to regard; again, therefore, she signed her name for paying the principal and interest of another 1000l. within ten days after she was of age; and having taken the money, she accompanied Mr and Mrs Harrel into another room. Presenting it then with an affecting solemnity to Mrs Harrel, “accept, Priscilla,” she cried, “this irrefragable mark of the sincerity of my friendship; but suffer me at the same time to tell you, it is the last to so considerable an amount I ever mean to offer; receive it, therefore, with kindness, but use it with discretion.” She then embraced her, and eager now to avoid acknowledgment, as before she had been to escape importunities, she left them together.