such a deposite!--If your blame, however, stops short of repentance--
but it cannot!"

"What, then," cried she with warmth, "must you have done? for there is
not an action of which I believe you capable, there is not an event
which I believe to be possible, that can ever make me repent belonging
to you wholly!"

"Generous, condescending Cecilia!" cried he; "Words such as these, hung
there not upon me an evil the most depressing, would be almost more
than I could bear--would make me too blest for mortality!"

"But words such as these," said she more gaily, "I might long have
coquetted ere I had spoken, had you not drawn them from me by this
alarm. Take, therefore, the good with the ill, and remember, if all
does not go right, you have now a trusty friend, as willing to be the
partner of your serious as your happiest hours."

"Shew but as much firmness as you have shewn sweetness," cried he, "and
I will fear to tell you nothing."

She reiterated her assurances; they then both sat down, and he began
his account.

"Immediately from your lodgings I went where I had ordered a chaise,
and stopped only to change horses till I reached Delvile Castle. My
father saw me with surprise, and received me with coldness. I was
compelled by my situation to be abrupt, and told him I came, before I
accompanied my mother abroad, to make him acquainted with an affair
which I thought myself bound in duty and respect to suffer no one to