ABSTRACT
IT would be difficult to say, whether Willoughby, wandering and solitary among the remote villages of Yorkshire, or Celestina, surrounded in London by what the world calls pleasure and amusement, was the most internally wretched. Celestina’s last dialogue with Vavasour, had convinced her that Willoughby no longer thought of her even with that degree of friendship and tenderness which he had so often assured her nothing should destroy: he was gone out of town merely to prepare for his marriage; and gone without deigning either to see her or answer the letter she had written to him. There was, in such conduct, so much unkindness and inhumanity, that she began to hope her reflections on it would, by degrees, abate the anguish she now felt: and she listened to Lady Horatia, who continually spoke of it as an unequivocal proof of Willoughby’s want of an heart capable of a generous and steady attachment. To Montague Thorold, however (who now again returned to town after an absence on business of some little time), she could not listen with so much complacency as her friend wished; and she repeatedly told him, that the greatest obligation he could confer upon her would be to desist from talking to her of love. The certainty, however, there now seemed to be that Willoughby no longer considered himself as interested about her; her positive rejection of Mr. Vavasour, and the encouragement given him by Lady Horatia, to persevere, brought him continually to the house; where their morning parties of reading recommenced; and whenever they went out of an evening, Montague Thorold was their attendant: thus drinking intoxicating draughts of love, and indulging hope that it would finally be successful.
