“Bad of you!” cried Cecilia, embracing her, “I scarce think so well of any one!”
“But I mean, madam, if you think I forget he is so much above me. But indeed I never do; for I only admire him for his goodness to my brother, and never think of him at all, but just by way of comparing him, sometimes, to the other people that I see, because he makes me hate them so, that I wish I was never to see them again.”
“His acquaintance, then,” said Cecilia, “has done you but an ill office, and happy it would be for you could you forget you had ever made it.”
“O, I shall never do that! for the more I think of him, the more I am out of humour with every body else! O Miss Beverley! we have a sad acquaintance indeed! I'm sure I don't wonder my brother was so ashamed of them. They are all so rude, and so free, and put one so out of countenance,—O how different is this person you are thinking of! he would not distress anybody, or make one ashamed for all the world! You only are like him! always gentle, always obliging!—sometimes I think you must be his sister—once, too, I heard—but that was contradicted.”
A deep sigh escaped Cecilia at this speech; she guessed too well what she might have heard, and she knew too well how it might be contradicted.
“Surely, you cannot be unhappy, Miss Beverley!” said Henrietta, with a look of mingled surprise and concern.
“I have much, I own,” cried Cecilia, assuming more chearfulness, “to be thankful for, and I endeavour not to forget it.”
“O how often do I think,” cried Henrietta, “that you, madam, are the happiest person in the world! with every thing at your own disposal,—with every body in love with you, with all the money that you can wish for, and so much sweetness that nobody can envy you it! with power to 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!”