Well, my Cecilia, what say you to this? Are you not as much surprized as I am? Mr Faulkland to emerge at last the favoured gallant of Mrs Gerrarde! Prodigious! I confess, my dear, I am so selfish as not to participate with Lady V---- in her uneasiness on this occasion. That Mrs Gerrarde flies from my husband, I am glad; and that Mr _Faulkland_ is the very man she chose to fly with, I am still gladder: he, of all men living, I would have wished (though least expected) to be the person. This explains every thing that is passed. Surely, as Lady V---- says, this _must_ open Mr Arnold's eyes. I can now discover a double reason for my poor deluded man's having his imagination poisoned with jealousy. Mrs Gerrarde did not aim singly at separating my husband and me: this, perhaps, was but a secondary consideration; or who knows whether it was at all intended? But she most certainly designed to secure herself against all suspicions, by making me the object of them; and effectually to blind Mr Arnold, persuaded him, that Mr Faulkland's visits, made to her, were only in the hope of seeing me. Let her views have been what they would, this event was beyond my hopes. Some glimmerings of comfort begin to break in upon me. Methinks my heart feels much lighter than it did. How Sir George will stare at this account! My mother will lift up her eyes; but she has no opinion of Mr Faulkland's morals, and therefore will be the less surprized. I pity Miss Burchell; this is an irremediable bar to her hopes; faint and unsupported as they were before, they must now entirely vanish. _November 24_