Cecilia, Memoirs of an Heiress, vol 1 | Page 5

even pretending to think of the service of his country,
he considered a cockade as a badge of politeness, and wore it but to
mark his devotion to the ladies, whom he held himself equipped to
conquer, and bound to adore.
The next who by forwardness the most officious took care to be noticed,
was Mr Morrice, a young lawyer, who, though rising in his profession,
owed his success neither to distinguished abilities, nor to
skill-supplying industry, but to the art of uniting suppleness to others
with confidence in himself. To a reverence of rank, talents, and fortune
the most profound, he joined an assurance in his own merit, which no
superiority could depress; and with a presumption which encouraged
him to aim at all things, he blended a good-humour that no
mortification could lessen. And while by the pliability of his
disposition he avoided making enemies, by his readiness to oblige, he
learned the surest way of making friends by becoming useful to them.
There were also some neighbouring squires; and there was one old
gentleman, who, without seeming to notice any of the company, sat
frowning in a corner.
But the principal figure in the circle was Mr Belfield, a tall, thin young
man, whose face was all animation, and whose eyes sparkled with
intelligence. He had been intended by his father for trade, but his spirit,
soaring above the occupation for which he was designed, from repining
led him to resist, and from resisting, to rebel. He eloped from his
friends, and contrived to enter the army. But, fond of the polite arts,
and eager for the acquirement of knowledge, he found not this way of

life much better adapted to his inclination than that from which he had
escaped; he soon grew weary of it, was reconciled to his father, and
entered at the Temple. But here, too volatile for serious study, and too
gay for laborious application, he made little progress: and the same
quickness of parts and vigour of imagination which united with
prudence, or accompanied by judgment, might have raised him to the
head of his profession, being unhappily associated with fickleness and
caprice, served only to impede his improvement, and obstruct his
preferment. And now, with little business, and that little neglected, a
small fortune, and that fortune daily becoming less, the admiration of
the world, but that admiration ending simply in civility, he lived an
unsettled and unprofitable life, generally caressed, and universally
sought, yet careless of his interest and thoughtless of the future;
devoting his time to company, his income to dissipation, and his heart
to the Muses.
"I bring you," said Mr Monckton, as he attended Cecilia into the room,
"a subject of sorrow in a young lady who never gave disturbance to her
friends but in quitting them."
"If sorrow," cried Mr Belfield, darting upon her his piercing eyes,
"wears in your part of the world a form such as this, who would wish to
change it for a view of joy?"
"She's divinely handsome, indeed!" cried the Captain, affecting an
involuntary exclamation.
Meantime, Cecilia, who was placed next to the lady of the house,
quietly began her breakfast; Mr Morrice, the young lawyer, with the
most easy freedom, seating himself at her side, while Mr Monckton
was elsewhere arranging the rest of his guests, in order to secure that
place for himself.
Mr Morrice, without ceremony, attacked his fair neighbour; he talked
of her journey, and the prospects of gaiety which it opened to her view;
but by these finding her unmoved, he changed his theme, and
expatiated upon the delights of the spot she was quitting. Studious to
recommend himself to her notice, and indifferent by what means, one

moment he flippantly extolled the entertainments of the town; and the
next, rapturously described the charms of the country. A word, a look
sufficed to mark her approbation or dissent, which he no sooner
discovered, than he slided into her opinion, with as much facility and
satisfaction as if it had originally been his own.
Mr Monckton, suppressing his chagrin, waited some time in
expectation that when this young man saw he was standing, he would
yield to him his chair: but the remark was not made, and the resignation
was not thought of. The Captain, too, regarding the lady as his natural
property for the morning, perceived with indignation by whom he was
supplanted; while the company in general, saw with much surprize, the
place they had severally foreborne to occupy from respect to their host,
thus familiarly seized upon by the man who, in the whole room, had the
least claim, either from age or rank, to consult nothing but his own
inclination.
Mr Monckton, however, when he found that delicacy and good
manners had no weight