keep just what company you please, and every body proud to be one of
the number!--Oh if I could chuse who I would be, I should sooner say
Miss Beverley than any princess in the world!"

Ah, thought Cecilia, if such is my situation,--how cruel that by one
dreadful blow all its happiness should be thrown away!

"Were I a rich lady, like you," continued Henrietta, "and quite in my
own power, then, indeed, I might soon think of nothing but those people
that I admire! and that makes me often wonder that _you_, madam, who
are just such another as himself--but then, indeed, you may see so many
of the same sort, that just this one may not so much strike you: and
for that reason I hope with all my heart that he will never be married
as long as he lives, for as he must take some lady in just such high
life as his own, I should always be afraid that she would never love
him as she ought to do!"

He need not now be single, thought Cecilia, were that all he had cause
to apprehend!

"I often think," added Henrietta, "that the rich would be as much
happier for marrying the poor, as the poor for marrying the rich, for
then they would take somebody that would try to deserve their kindness,
and now they only take those that know they have a right to it. Often
and often have I thought so about this very gentleman! and sometimes
when I have been in his company, and seen his civility and his
sweetness, I have fancied I was rich and grand myself, and it has quite
gone out of my head that I was nothing but poor Henrietta Belfield!"

"Did he, then," cried Cecilia a little alarmed, "ever seek to