ABSTRACT
ALL the following day passed without any tidings of Cathcart, in search of whom the anxious eyes of Celestina were continually turned towards the window. Mr. Thorold went out to his farm and among his parishioners in his usual way, and had charged his wife to let Celestina be mistress of her time, and not to importune her with questions or even with conversation: to Arabella also he had given the same injunctions: but the native politeness of Celestina had made both the ladies believe she was pleased by their conversation and interested in their concerns, and to avoid the appearance of rudeness or singularity, Celestina now forced herself into some degree of attention to their endeavours to entertain her, listened to the details Mrs. Thorold gave of the affairs of the neighbourhood, and gave her daughter her opinion of the most elegant mixture of colours in a work bag she was composing for one of her sisters, heard with patient politeness a long poem, written by young Thorold, who was now at Oxford, and assented to the justice of Arabella’s complaints that there was very little rational society in the country, that every body now forsook their distant seats to pass their summers at some watering place, and that unless one could enter into the amusements of an inferior circle, there was to be found in the country no amusement at all.
