he given me of it! and at length what a triumphant sacrifice has he made of that overruling passion, to the sober calls of reason and humanity! He has left me, my dear, to gaze after him with grateful admiration! and sometimes perhaps to sigh that our fates rendered it impossible for us to meet. But if I do sometimes sigh, it is not at the advantages of fortune, which I might have enjoyed with him; no, no, surrounded as I am with distress, I do not envy Miss Burchell's affluence or splendor. If _that_ motive could have had weight with me, I might have been mean enough not to have acted as I have done. 'Tis the qualities of the man's mind I esteem; I think our souls have something congenial in them, and that we were originally designed for each other. And if I believed the doctrine which teaches us that there are little officious spirits that preside over the actions of men, I should think that our two evil geniuses laid their heads together in conjunction with Miss Burchell's active demon, to thwart and cross all our measures. I have nothing now left but to pray for the happiness of one whose lot in this life he has suffered _me_ to determine; and to beseech Heaven that he may never stand in that fatal predicament which Sir George, with such outrageous barbarity, marked out in his vile letter. I now return to myself, and to my present state; which I think I may say brings up the rear of my misfortunes. Let the chastisement stop here, and I shall bow me to it with resignation. _October 29_ Ah, my Cecilia, what an aggravation is here to the already too deep regret I began to feel on Mr Faulkland's account! His triumph over me is now complete! In sorting my mother's papers (as I am to leave these lodgings tomorrow) I found that letter which Mr Faulkland wrote to my brother from Bath. You may remember I told you my mother had, in her resentment, flung it to Sir George, and that, as it happened to fall on the ground, he had quitted the room in a passion without taking it up. My mother, I suppose, when she cooled, laid it by, though I dare say she never looked into it afterwards. Read it, and see by what a fatality we have been governed. Mr Faulkland's letter to Sir George Bidulph. _Bath, May 9, 1703_ 'How you mortify me, my dear Bidulph, when you tell me of the happiness I lost by staying so long at Bath! _The ladies are impatient to see me_, say you? Ah, Sir George, thou hast spoke better of me than I deserve, I fear. 'I am sadly out of humour with myself at present. I have got into a very foolish sort of a scrape here. My wrist is quite well, and I should have thrown myself at Miss Bidulph's feet before now, but to tell you a secret, my virtue not being proof against temptation, I have been intercepted.