“Call not by so harsh a name,” answered Mrs Delvile, “the keenness of a sensibility by which you have yourself alone been the sufferer. You have had a trial the most severe, and however able to sustain, it was impossible you should not feel it. That you should give up any man whose friends solicit not your alliance, your mind is too delicate to make wonderful; but your generosity in submitting, unasked, the arrangement of that resignation to those for whose interest it is made, and your high sense of honour in holding yourself accountable to me, though under no tie, and bound by no promise, mark a greatness of mind which calls for reverence rather than thanks, and which I never can praise half so much as I admire.” Cecilia, who received this applause but as a confirmation of her rejection, thanked her only by courtsying; and Mrs Delvile, having seated herself next her, continued her speech. “My son, you have the goodness to tell me, is here,--have you seen him?” “Yes, madam,” answered she, blushing, “but hardly for a moment.” “And he knows not of my arrival?” No,--I believe he certainly does not.” “Sad then, is the trial which awaits him, and heavy for me the office I must perform! Do you expect to see him again?” “No,--yes,--perhaps--indeed I hardly--” She stammered, and Mrs Delvile, taking her hand, said “Tell me, Miss Beverley, _why_ should you see him again?” Cecilia was thunderstruck by this question, and, colouring yet more deeply, looked down, but could not answer. “Consider,” continued Mrs Delvile, “the _purpose_ of any further meeting; your union is impossible, you have nobly consented to relinquish all thoughts of it why then tear your own heart, and torture his, by an intercourse which seems nothing but an ill-judged invitation to fruitless and unavailing sorrow?” Cecilia was still silent; the truth of the expostulation her reason acknowledged, but to assent to its consequence her whole heart refused. “The ungenerous triumph of little female vanity,” said Mrs Delvile, “is far, I am sure, from your mind, of which the enlargement and liberality will rather find consolation from lessening than from embittering his sufferings. Speak to me, then, and tell me honestly, judiciously, candidly tell me, will it not be wiser and more right, to avoid rather than seek an object which can only give birth to regret? an interview which can excite no sensations but of misery and sadness?” Cecilia then turned pale, she endeavoured to speak, but could not; she wished to comply,--yet to think she had seen him for the last time, to remember how abruptly she had parted from him, and to fear she had treated him unkindly;--these were obstacles which opposed her concurrence, though both judgment and propriety demanded it. “Can you, then,” said Mrs Delvile, after a pause, “can you wish to see Mortimer merely to behold his grief? Can you desire he should see you, only to sharpen his affliction at your loss?”