"No, no, no," cried she, with quickness.

"Never mind, my chick, never mind," said he, pinching her cheek, with
resumed good humour, "more to be had; if one won't snap, another will;
put me in a passion by going off from me with that old grandee, or
would have got one long ago. Hate that old Don; used me very ill; wish
I could trounce him. Thinks more of a fusty old parchment than the
price of stocks. Fit for nothing but to be stuck upon an old monument
for a Death's head."

He then told her that her accounts were all made out, and he was ready
at any time to produce them; he approved much of her finishing wholly
with the _old Don_, who had been a mere cypher in the executorship; but
he advised her not to think of taking her money into her own hands, as
he was willing to keep the charge of it himself till she was married.

Cecilia, thanking him for the offer, said she meant now to make her
acknowledgments for all the trouble he had already taken, but by no
means purposed to give him any more.

He debated the matter with her warmly, told her she had no chance to
save herself from knaves and cheats, but by trusting to nobody but
himself, and informing her what interest he had already made of her
money, enquired how she would set about getting more?

Cecilia, though prejudiced against him by Mr Monckton, knew not how to
combat his arguments; yet conscious that scarce any part of the money
to which he alluded was in fact her own, she could not yield to them.
He was, however, so stubborn and so difficult to deal with, that she at
length let him talk without troubling herself to answer, and privately