"Only think," cried the rapturous Henrietta, "it was _me_, poor simple
_me_, of all people, that he wanted so to speak with!--I am sure I
thought a different thought when he went away! but do, dearest Miss
Beverley, tell me this one thing, what do you think he can have to say
to me?"

"Indeed," replied Cecilia, extremely embarrassed, it is impossible for
me to conjecture."

"If _you_ can't, I am sure, then, it is no wonder _I_ can't! and I have
been thinking of a million of things in a minute. It can't be about any
business, because I know nothing in the world of any business; and it
can't be about my brother, because he would go to our house in town
about him, and there he would see him himself; and it can't be about my
dear Miss Beverley, because then he would have written the note to her
and it can't be about any body else, because I know nobody else of his
acquaintance."

Thus went on the sanguine Henrietta, settling whom and what it could
_not_ be about, till she left but the one thing to which her wishes
pointed that it _could_ be about. Cecilia heard her with true
compassion, certain that she was deceiving herself with imaginations
the most pernicious; yet unable to know how to quell them, while in
such doubt and darkness herself.

This conversation was soon interrupted, by a message that a gentleman
in the parlour begged to speak with Miss Belfield.

"O dearest, dearest Miss Beverley!" cried Henrietta, with encreasing