“Both, both! I believe, indeed, the conflict would have overpowered me,--I see you are right,--and I thank you, madam, for saving me from a scene I might so cruelly have rued.” “Oh Daughter of my mind!” cried Mrs Delvile, rising and embracing her, “noble, generous, yet gentle Cecilia! what tie, what connection, could make you more dear to me? Who is there like you? Who half so excellent? So open to reason, so ingenuous in error! so rational! so just! so feeling, yet so wise!” “You are very good,” said Cecilia, with a forced serenity, “and I am thankful that your resentment for the past obstructs not your lenity for the present.” “Alas, my love, how shall I resent the past, when I ought myself to have foreseen this calamity! and I _should_ have foreseen it, had I not been informed you were engaged, and upon your engagement built our security. Else had I been more alarmed, for my own admiration would have bid me look forward to my son's. You were just, indeed, the woman he had least chance to resist, you were precisely the character to seize his very soul. To a softness the most fatally alluring, you join a dignity which rescues from their own contempt even the most humble of your admirers. You seem born to have all the world wish your exaltation, and no part of it murmur at your superiority. Were any obstacle but this insuperable one in the way, should nobles, nay, should princes offer their daughters to my election, I would reject without murmuring the most magnificent proposals, and take in triumph to my heart my son's nobler choice!” “Oh madam,” cried Cecilia, “talk not to me thus!--speak not such flattering words!--ah, rather scorn and upbraid me, tell me you despise my character, my family and my connections,--load, load me with contempt, but do not thus torture me with approbation!” “Pardon me, sweetest girl, if I have awakened those emotions you so wisely seek to subdue. May my son but emulate your example, and my pride in his virtue shall be the solace of my affliction for his misfortunes.” She then tenderly embraced her, and abruptly took her leave. Cecilia had now acted her part, and acted it to her own satisfaction; but the curtain dropt when Mrs Delvile left the house, nature resumed her rights, and the sorrow of her heart was no longer disguised or repressed. Some faint ray of hope had till now broke through the gloomiest cloud of her misery, and secretly flattered her that its dispersion was possible, though distant: but that ray was extinct, that hope was no more; she had solemnly promised to banish Delvile her sight, and his mother had absolutely declared that even the subject had been discussed for the last time.