“Yes, I know it is; and I meant that it should be so.  I should only have done what I was bound to do if I had only given you a mandarin.”

“Well, and that would have been enough, surely; but what a beautiful crown of roses! and then that basket of flowers! they almost look as if I could smell them.  Dear Cecilia!  I’m very much obliged to you, but I won’t take it by way of payment for the mandarin you broke; for I’m sure you could not help that; and, besides, I should have broken it myself by this time.  You shall give it to me entirely, and I’ll keep it as long as I live as your keepsake.”

Louisa stopped short and coloured.  The word keepsake recalled the box to her mind, and all the train of ideas which the Flora had banished.  “But,” said she, looking up wishfully in Cecilia’s face, and holding the Flora doubtfully, “did you——­”

Leonora, who was just quitting the room, turned her head back, and gave Louisa a look, which silenced her.

Cecilia was so infatuated with her vanity, that she neither perceived Leonora’s sign, nor Louisa’s confusion, but continued showing off her present, by placing it in various situations, till at length she put it into the case, and laying it down with an affected carelessness upon the bed, “I must go now, Louisa.  Good bye,” said she, running up and kissing her; “but I’ll come again presently;” then clapping the door after her, she went.

But as soon as the fermentation of her spirits subsided, the sense of shame, which had been scarcely felt when mixed with so many other sensations, rose uppermost in her mind.  “What?” said she to herself, “is it possible that I have sold what I promised to keep for ever? and what Leonora gave me? and I have concealed it too, and have been making a parade of my generosity.  O! what would Leonora, what would Louisa, what would every body think of me, if the truth were known?”

Humiliated and grieved by these reflections, Cecilia began to search in her own mind for some consoling idea.  She began to compare her conduct with the conduct of others of her own age; and at length, fixing her comparison upon her brother George, as the companion of whom, from her infancy, she had been habitually the most emulous, she recollected that an almost similar circumstance had once happened to him, and that he had not only escaped disgrace, but had acquired glory by an intrepid confession of his fault.  Her father’s words to her brother, on that occasion, she also perfectly recollected.

“Come to me, George,” he said, holding out his hand; “you are a generous, brave boy.  They who dare to confess their faults will make great and good men.”