CHAPTER ix. — A TRIBUTE.  

  CHAPTER x. — A TERMINATION.  

  

  

       BOOK VIII. Continued.     

  

  

       CHAPTER ii. — AN EVENT.     

       Scarce less unhappy in her decision than in her uncertainty, and every way dissatisfied with her situation, her views and herself, Cecilia was still so distressed and uncomfortable, when Delvile called the next morning, that he could not discover what her determination had been, and fearfully enquired his doom with hardly any hope of finding favour.     

       But Cecilia was above affectation, and a stranger to art. “I would not,       Sir,” she said, “keep you an instant in suspense, when I am no longer in suspense myself. I may have appeared trifling, but I have been nothing less, and you would readily exculpate me of caprice, if half the distress of my irresolution was known to you. Even now, when I hesitate no more, my mind is so ill at ease, that I could neither wonder nor be displeased should you hesitate in your turn.”      

       “You hesitate no more?” cried he, almost breathless at the sound of those words, “and is it possible—Oh my Cecilia!—is it possible your resolution is in my favour?”      

       “Alas!” cried she, “how little is your reason to rejoice! a dejected and melancholy gift is all you can receive!”      

       “Ere I take it, then,” cried he, in a voice that spoke joy; pain, and fear all at once in commotion, “tell me if your reluctance has its origin in me, that I may rather even yet relinquish you, than merely owe your hand to the selfishness of persecution?”      

       “Your pride,” said she, half smiling, “has some right to be alarmed, though I meant not to alarm it. No! it is with myself only I am at variance, with my own 

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