information, yet not to be speedy with it would double the barbarity of
their disappointment. She even felt for these poor women, whose loss in
her she knew would be irreparable, a compassion that drove from her
mind almost every other subject, and determined her, in order to soften
to them this misfortune, to communicate it herself, that she might
prevent them from sinking under it, by reviving them with hopes of her
future assistance.

She had ordered at seven o'clock in the morning an hired chaise at the
door, and she did not suffer it long to wait for her. She quitted her
house with a heart full of care and anxiety, grieving at the necessity
of making such a sacrifice, uncertain how it would turn out, and
labouring under a thousand perplexities with respect to the measures
she ought immediately to take. She passed, when she reached the hall,
through a row of weeping domestics, not one of whom with dry eyes could
see the house bereft of such a mistress. She spoke to them all with
kindness, and as much as was in her power with chearfulness: but the
tone of her voice gave them little reason to think the concern at this
journey was all their own.

She ordered her chaise to drive round to the pew-opener's and thence to
the rest of her immediate dependents. She soon, however, regretted that
she had given herself this task; the affliction of these poor
pensioners was clamorous, was almost heart-breaking; they could live,
they said, no longer, they were ruined for ever; they should soon be
without bread to eat, and they might cry for help in vain, when their
generous, their only benefactress was far away!

Cecilia made the kindest efforts, to comfort and encourage them,
assuring them the very moment her own affairs were arranged, she would