I think, mother, said Sir George, bluntly, you were disappointed in your first love; I have heard you speak of it, but I forget the circumstances. As I had never heard my mother make any mention of this particular, I begged she would oblige me with relating it.

When I was about one-and-twenty, daughter, said she, a match was concluded by my father between me and a very fine gentleman. I loved him, and (as I suppose all young women do in the like circumstances) believed myself equally beloved by him. The courtship had been of a year’s standing; for you must know I was not very easily won. Every thing was settled, and the day appointed for our marriage arrived; when, instead of the bridegroom, whom we every minute expected, there came a letter from him directed to me. The contents were, that having formerly been engaged to a young lady by the most solemn vows, he had, unfortunately for them both, forgot them all on seeing me, and had broke through every obligation divine and human to obtain me. He intreated mine, and my family’s pardon, in the most pathetic manner, for having engaged our esteem so far as to consent to an union, of which he found himself unworthy, and which it was impossible for him to accomplish; for, said he, the wrongs I have done the woman, whose youth I seduced, rise to my imagination with so much horror, that, for the empire of the world, I would not complete my guilt, by devoting that hand to another, to which she only has a right. He enlarged greatly on the sufferings of his heart, in the struggle between his love for me, and his duty to the person who had his first vows; and whom, he declared, his infidelity had almost brought to the grave. He claimed my pity, both on his own and her account; and repeatedly intreated my forgiveness of his fault.

The whole letter, which was very long, was so expressive of a mind overwhelmed with despair, that I was exceedingly shocked at the reading of it. What could I say? The plea he offered for his seemingly strange conduct, was too just to admit of any objections. I own the disappointment afflicted me, but I bore it with a becoming resolution. My family were at first exceedingly exasperated against my doubly unfaithful lover; but, upon enquiring into the facts, they found the truth to be as he had represented it. The conclusion was, that, upon the very day on which he was to have been married to me, and on which he had writ me that gloomy letter, he was seized with a melancholy, with increasing on him daily, soon after ended in absolute madness, and he was obliged to be confined for the remainder for his life. The young lady lived but a short time after the melancholy fate of her lover, and died, as it was said, of a broken heart.

It was a great comfort to me to reflect that my fate disposed otherwise of me than to this unhappy gentleman; for I am very sure, had these fatal events happened in consequence of my marriage with him, that I should never have survived it.

This extraordinary anecdote of my mother’s life, which I had never had a hint of before (for she could not speak of it without great emotion), very much affected me. Sir George said, the story was more tragical than he had apprehended, and told my mother, that was an accident which fell out between the cup and the lip, with a vengeance.

My mother continued thoughtful for a good while; and I was sorry that the memory of this melancholy story had been revived; but Sir George talked and laughed us both in spirits again.

July 6

This Mr Faulkland is a princely man; he has sent me such a set of jewels! My mother says they are too fine for a private gentlewoman; but George tells her they are not a bit too fine for Mr Faulkland’s wife, and only suitable to his fortune. You know I have but few of my own, those only which were my mother’s when she was a maiden. The greatest part of her’s, and by much the finest, were presented to her by my father; but those she reserves for Sir George, against the time of his marriage, as a present for his lady; for they are family jewels.

July 8

My probation is over, my Cecilia.—The formidable question has been put to me, and I have answered it—Ay marry, say you, but how? In the negative, to be sure, my dear—No, no, my Cecilia; a valuable (psha! what an affected cold word that is), a lovely and most worthy man, with six thousand pounds a year, is a prize that a country girl must not expect to draw every day. Mr Faulkland, in lover-like phrase, demanded from me the time of his destined happiness: I referred him to my mother. She, good and delicate as she is, referred him back to Sir George. George blurted out some sudden day that startled us both, when Mr Faulkland reported it to us. I stammered out something; my mother hesitated; Sir George came in, and blundered at us all; so I think we compounded for the time, and amongst us fixed upon this day month—And full soon enough, says my Cecilia: you have known the man but about six weeks, and surely a month is as little time as you can take, in preparing fineries. True, my girl, true; but it is all George’s doings. Indeed, my Cecilia, without affectation, I had much rather have had a longer day; though I think I know the man as well in those six weeks, as if I had been acquainted with him so many years; for he has spent most of his hours with us every day during that time; and my mother says he is one of those in whom there is no guile.