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"Indeed," said Cecilia, after some hesitation, "I cannot see the necessity of such violent precipitancy"

"Do you not try me too much," cried Delvile, impatiently, "to talk now of precipitancy! after such painful waiting, such wearisome expectation! I ask you not to involve your own affairs in confusion by accoence, I would not make a run-away of you in the opinion of the world All I wish is the secret certainty I cannot be robbed of you, that no cruel ain work our separation, that you are mine, unalterably mine, beyond the power of caprice or ill fortune"

Cecilia made no answer; tortured with irresolution, she knew not upon what to deter to the favour or displeasure of my father, settle wholly abroad for the present, or occasionally visit hiland; my mother would be always and openly our friend--Oh be firiven her, and deign to be mine on the conditions she prescribes She will be bound to you for ever by so generous a concession, and even her health may be restored by the cessation of her anxieties With such a wife, such aricher, I must be rapacious indeed!--Speak, then, ony of this eternal uncertainty, and tell me your word is invariable as your honour, and tell hed deeply, but, after some hesitation, said, "I little knehat I had promised, nor know I nohat to perform!--there must ever, I find, be some check to human happiness! yet, since upon these terms, Mrs Delvile herself is content to wish ed earnestly by Delvile, added "I must not, I think, withdraw the pohich I entrusted her"

Delvile, grateful and enchanted, now forgot his haste and his business, and lost every wish but to re-animate her spirits: she coht less be wondered at, and sent by hi upon her wisdom, she implicitly submitted to her decree