After paying the expences of my mother's funeral, discharging our lodgings, and some other demands, I find my purse will be so extremely reduced, that I shall have but barely enough to keep out want, till my small income becomes due to me. I must therefore, for the present, defer putting my scheme into execution, as I am not qualified to undertake a journey with my little family; especially as I am as yet uncertain what place to fix on for my residence; neither will I afford my brother (though I have no reason to expect any thing from him), a farther pretence for reproaching me, by giving him room to say, I left London without consulting him, or waiting for his return to it. I shall therefore look out a lodging of a small price, where I will conceal myself from every body that knows me, and wait for Sir George's arrival. _October 28_ How happy you make me, my ever dear friend, by your approbation of my conduct; since my receiving your last packet, which came into my hand late last night, I am better reconciled to my present lot than I was before I heard from you. I _could not do otherwise_, you say, after my solemn promise given to Miss Burchell, than use my utmost endeavours to promote her marriage with Mr Faulkland. True; I could not: but I wish you had entered more into my sentiments, in regard to those punctilios, which, you tell me, you think _might_ have been got over, if that young woman had been out of the question. I could not help smiling at your wish, unchristian as it was; but my dear, if that _were_ to happen, do you think Mr Faulkland so void of reason, nay of feeling, as after all that has past to persevere? Or if he did, that I could be so mean as to owe the very bread that I and my children should eat, to his generosity? Would you, my Cecilia, wish to see your friend so humbled? 'Tis not in the power even of the cold, hard hand of poverty itself, to dash me so low as that would do. But where is the need of forming resolutions, or even making declarations about what never _can_ happen? I see notwithstanding, that you think my heart has _again_ done itself some violence: You know that heart too well for me to attempt to hide from you its secret workings. I own to you honestly I now feel my own unhappiness in its full extent. I look back, and take a survey of the past, and cannot help thinking that I have had the most wayward fate allotted me that ever woman had.