Cecilia; Or, Memoirs of an Heiress — Volume 3Burney, Fanny
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Cecilia; Or, Memoirs of an Heiress — Volume 3
Burney, Fanny
England -- Fiction; Inheritance and succession -- Fiction; Love stories; Young women -- Fiction
“Come away, Sir, come away,” cried Dr Lyster, who now saw that Cecilia
was greatly agitated, “I will not be answerable for the continuation of
this scene;” and taking him by the arm, he awakened him from his frantic
rapture, by assuring him she would faint, and forced him away from her.
Soon after he was gone, and Cecilia became more tranquil, Henrietta,
who had wept with bitterness in a corner of the room during this scene,
approached her, and, with an attempted smile, though in a voice hardly
audible, said, “Ah, Miss Beverley, you will, at last, then be happy!
happy as all your goodness deserves. And I am sure I should rejoice in
it if I was to die to make you happier!”
Cecilia, who but too well knew her full meaning, tenderly embraced her,
but was prevented by Dr Lyster from entering into any discourse with
her.
The first meeting, however, with Delvile being over, the second was
far more quiet, and in a very short time, he would scarcely quit her a
moment, Cecilia herself receiving from his sight a pleasure too great
for denial, yet too serene for danger.
The worthy Dr Lyster, finding her prospect of recovery thus fair,
prepared for leaving London: but, equally desirous to do good out of his
profession as in it, he first, at the request of Delvile, waited upon
his father, to acquaint him with his present situation, solicit his
directions for his future proceedings, and endeavour to negociate a
general reconciliation.
Mr Delvile, to whose proud heart social joy could find no avenue, was
yet touched most sensibly by the restoration of Cecilia. Neither his
dignity nor his displeasure had been able to repress remorse, a feeling
to which, with all his foibles, he had not been accustomed. The view of
her distraction had dwelt upon his imagination, the despondency of his
son had struck him with fear and horror. He had been haunted by self
reproach, and pursued by vain regret; and those concessions he had
refused to tenderness and entreaty, he now willingly accorded to change
repentance for tranquility. He sent instantly for his son, whom even
with tears he embraced, and felt his own peace restored as he pronounced
his forgiveness.
New, however, to kindness, he retained it not long, and a stranger to
generosity, he knew not how to make her welcome: the extinction of his
remorse abated his compassion for Cecilia, and when solicited to receive
her, he revived the charges of Mr Monckton.
Cecilia, informed of this, determined to write to that gentleman
herself, whose long and painful illness, joined to his irrecoverable
loss of her, she now hoped might prevail with him to make reparation for
the injuries he had done her.
_To Mr Monckton_.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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