Cecilia was shewn into a parlour, where Mrs Belfield was very earnestly discoursing with Mr Hobson and Mr Simkins; and Belfield himself, to her great satisfaction, was already there, and reading.

"Lack a-day!" cried Mrs Belfield, "if one does not always see the people one's talking of! Why it was but this morning, madam, I was saying to Mr Hobson, I wonder, says I, a young lady of such fortunes as Miss Beverley should mope herself up so in the country! Don't you remember it, Mr Hobson?"

"Yes, madam," answered Mr Hobson, "but I think, for my part, the young lady's quite in the right to do as she's a mind; for that's what I call living agreeable: and if I was a young lady to-morrow, with such fine fortunes, and that, it's just what I should do myself: for what I say is this: where's the joy of having a little money, and being a little matter above the world, if one has not one's own will?"

"Ma'am," said Mr Simkins, who had scarce yet raised his head from the profoundness of his bow upon Cecilia's entrance into the room, "if I may be so free, may I make bold just for to offer you this chair?"

"I called, madam," said Cecilia, seizing the first moment in her power to speak, "in order to acquaint you that your daughter, who is perfectly well, has made a little change in her situation, which she was anxious you should hear from myself."

"Ha! ha! stolen a match upon you, I warrant!" cried the facetious Mr Hobson; "a good example for you, young lady; and if you take my advice, you won't be long before you follow it; for as to a lady, let her be worth never so much, she's a mere nobody, as one may say, till she can get herself a husband, being she knows nothing of business, and is made to pay for every thing through the nose."

"Fie, Mr Hobson, fie!" said Mr Simkins, "to talk so slighting of the ladies before their faces! what one says in a corner, is quite of another nature; but for to talk so rude in their company,--I thought you would scorn to do such a thing."

"Sir, I don't want to be rude no more than yourself," said Mr Hobson, "for what I say is, rudeness is a thing that makes nobody agreeable; but I don't see because of that, why a man is not to speak his mind to a lady as well as to a gentleman, provided he does it in a complaisant fashion."

"Mr Hobson," cried Mrs Belfield, very impatiently, "you might as well let me speak, when the matter is all about my own daughter."




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