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 ingratiate himself into your favour?”
“No, never! but when treated with so much softness, 'tis hard always to remember one's meanness! You, madam, have no notion of that task: no more had I myself till lately, for I cared not who was high, nor who was low: but now, indeed, I must own I have some times wished myself richer! yet he assumes so little, that at other times, I have almost forgot all distance between us, and even thought—Oh foolish thought!—
“Tell it, sweet Henrietta, however!”
“I will tell you, madam, every thing! for my heart has been bursting to open itself, and nobody have I dared trust. I have thought, then, I have sometimes thought,—my true affection, my faithful fondness, my glad obedience,—might make him, if he did but know them, happier in me than in a greater lady!”
“Indeed,” cried Cecilia, extremely affected by this plaintive tenderness, “I believe it—and were I him, I could not, I think, hesitate a moment in my choice!”
Henrietta now, hearing her mother coming in, made a sign to her to be silent; but Mrs Belfield had not been an instant in the passage, before a thundering knocking at the street-door occasioned it to be instantly re-opened. A servant then enquired if Mrs Belfield was at home, and being answered by herself in the affirmative, a chair was brought into the house.
But what was the astonishment of Cecilia, when, in another moment, she heard from the next parlour the voice of Mr Delvile senior, saying, “Your servant, ma'am; Mrs Belfield, I presume?”
There was no occasion, now, to make a sign to her of silence, for her own amazement was sufficient to deprive her of speech.